5[l|p  iSeconHttuctian  af 
tilt  Ammcan  Glljutcli 


DFC 


BX  8    .H48  1919 
Haushalter,  Walter  Milton, 

1889-  . 
The  reconstruction  of  the 

American  ^-^"^^(^J 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2015 


https://archive.org/details/reconstructionofOOhaus_0 


THE  RECONSTRUCTION  OF 
THE  AMERICAN  CHURCH 

BY 

WALTER  M.  HAUSHALTER 

Author  of  "Christ  Lord  of  Bailies" 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE  GORHAM  PRESS 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Richard  G.  Badger 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 

THE  WOMAN 
WHO  HAS  MADE  LITE  FRAGRANT 
WITH  THE  IDEALISM 
OF  CHRIST 


INTRODUCTION 


"As  Thou  didst  send  Me  into  the  world  even  so 
send  I  them.  I  pray  that  they  may  all  he  one, 
even  as  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee, 
that  the  world  may  believe  that  Thou  didst  send 
Me.  And  the  glory  which  thou  hast  given  Me 
I  have  given  unto  them,  that  they  may  be  one 
even  as  We  are  one;  I  in  them  and  Thou  in  Me, 
that  they  may  be  perfected  into  one;  that  the 
world  may  know  that  Thou  didst  send  me." 
Jesus,  John  iy:i8-2^. 

"Even  as  we  have  many  members  in  one  body, 
and  all  the  members  have  not  the  same  office;  so 
we,  who  are  many,  are  one  body  in  Christ  and 
severally  members  one  of  another."  Paul,  Ro- 
mans 12:4-5. 


INTRODUCTION 


THE  two  determining  forces  of  society,  the 
Radical  and  the  Conservative,  the  Heretical 
and  the  Orthodox,  the  Progressive  and  the  Reac- 
tionary, are  engaged  in  a  powerful  tug-of-war 
to-day  to  plot  the  future  orbit  of  the  Church. 
To  those  happy  and  "divine-minded"  ones  who 
can  attain  sufficient  elevation  of  soul  to  view 
without  prejudice  the  issues  of  the  conflict,  it  will 
become  apparent  that  both  Radical  and  Conserva- 
tive, both  Heretical  and  Orthodox,  both  Progres- 
sive and  Reactionary  are  required  to  make  the 
future  Church  orbit  safe.  Both  these  determin- 
ing forces  are  as  necessary  to  the  Church  as  are 
the  centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces  to  the 
earth  to  hold  it  in  its  orbit  about  the  sun.  Were 
the  Radical,  Heretical,  Progressive,  centrifugal 
force  to  contribute  its  influence  alone  to  the  earth 
our  planet  would  wander  off  into  the  void  of  the 
Universe,  a  flaming  but  soon  bumt-out  meteor. 
And  were  the  Conservative,  Orthodox,  Reaction- 

,  7 


8 


Introduction 


ary,  centripetal  influence  alone  to  hold  sway  the 
earth's  career  would  be  direct  to  the  heart  of 
the  sun,  the  central  furnace  of  destruction.  The 
Church  needs  both  forces,  and  this  realization 
should  usher  a  new  era  of  tolerance  and  "di- 
vine-mindedness"  into  the  counsels  and  campaigns 
of  the  "Body  of  Christ." 

To  all  contending  parties  in  the  Church  and 
out  of  it  to-day  there  are  not  wanting  signs  to 
indicate  a  change  in  the  future  orbit  of  the  Insti- 
tution of  Christ.  The  War  has  shifted  the  foci 
and  the  orbit  accordingly.  This  is  a  strategic 
time  for  the  Church  to  revamp  and  revalue  its 
ideals  and  its  methods,  to  overhaul  its  machinery, 
and  to  give  pragmatic  denial  to  the  cynical  claim 
that  we  are  "all  dressed  up  and  nowhere  to  go." 
The  time  for  reconstruction  is  here  and  the  Church 
must  once  and  for  all  wrench  itself  loose  from  the 
deadly  notion  that  it  is  working  for  its  own  sake 
rather  than  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  The  time 
is  strategic  and  bursting  with  the  sense  of  a  new 
and  Pentecostal  visitation  of  God. 

There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 

Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 

Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 


Introduction 


9 


Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries. 
On  such  a  full  sea  are  we  now  afloat 
And  we  must  take  the  current  when  it  serves 
Or  lose  our  ventures. 

The  one  mighty  and  conclusive  conviction  that 
throbs  in  the  Church  of  Christ  to-day  is  the  im- 
perative and  impressive  necessity  of  a  closer 
Unity.  Words  fail  us  to  express  the  full  and 
crying  mandamus  of  this  necessity,  for  words,  as 
Alfred  Noyes  says,  were  not  made  for  such  times 
as  these.  All  over  Christendom  the  conscience 
is  burning  and  struggling  for  articulate  voice, 
pleading  for  Unity.  The  War  has  shown  that 
the  veto  of  the  Almighty  is  on  our  divisions.  Let 
those  come  forward  and  say  who  they  are,  who 
can  defend  or  even  tolerate  the  individualism 
and  selfishness  of  our  past  and  jerky  denomlna- 
tionallsm.  Only  one  threatening  and  negative 
word  need  be  said,  that  Is,  If  the  Church  does 
not  attain  to  and  function  In  unison,  the  prophecy 
of  the  cynical  guest  in  Steven  Graham's  Priest  of 
the  Ideal  may  come  true — "that  the  Church  is 
here  merely  on  sufferance." 

Lovers  of  Kipling  will  recall  his  Without  Ben- 
efit of  Clergy.    It  is  a  beautiful  love  story  of 


10 


Introduction 


the  marriage  of  an  English  captain  and  a  lovely 
Mohammedan  woman.  These  two  souls,  widely 
separated  in  race  and  religion,  were  bound  to- 
gether in  deepest  spiritual  devotion.  A  child  was 
born  to  them  and  they  were  happy  with  a  happi- 
ness the  angels  would  envy.  The  mother  was 
all  devotion,  absorbed  in  the  life  of  her  child. 
They  were  both  happy  beyond  measure  with  a 
happiness  absolute  and  withdrawn  from  the 
world.  But  the  mother  feared  the  powers  were 
jealous  of  their  happiness  and  would  steal  the 
child  away.  So  it  was.  The  accounts  were  audited 
with  a  big  red  pencil  that  summer.  The  cholera 
came  from  all  quarters  of  the  compass.  It  struck 
a  pilgrim  gathering  at  a  shrine  and  thousands 
died  at  the  feet  of  their  gods.  The  pestilence 
broke  over  the  face  of  all  India.  People  fleeing 
to  the  mountains  died  by  the  roadside.  The 
Mohammedan  calls  to  prayer  were  unceasing,  but 
the  gods  seemed  strangely  inattentive  in  those 
days. 

The  captain  and  his  wife  lost  their  child.  The 
beautiful  little  spirit  was  shaken  out  of  the  body 
with  fever.  The  mother  was  mad  with  anguish 
and  grief.    The  captain  went  to  the  bedside  of  his 


Introduction 


II 


wife  and  looked  down  upon  her  with  infinite  com- 
passion. "Life  of  my  life,"  said  the  woman, 
"breath  of  my  soul!  Yesterday  we  were  three; 
to-day  we  are  two;  therefore  there  is  the  more 
reason  that  to-morrow  we  should  be  one." 

If  the  Great  War  with  its  infinite  losses  of  the 
sons  of  the  Church  does  not  stir  us  to  a  new  con- 
science on  our  "Oneness"  then  indeed  the  Church 
has  lost  its  divine  opportunity.  But  the  con- 
science of  Christendom  is  agitated,  its  voice  is 
sounding  in  articulate  measures  for  a  new  Unity. 
We  were  three  yesterday,  two  to-day.  Shall  we 
be  one  to-morrow? 

The  consensus  of  public  thought  has  inclined 
overpoweringly  to  the  conviction  that  a  new  day 
for  Christianity  finds  dawn  after  the  war.  But 
why  shorten  the  arm  of  the  Almighty?  Already 
a  new  hour  has  struck — an  hour  that  declares  the 
night  far  spent  and  the  day  at  hand.  Through 
the  bewildering  maze  and  over  the  chaos  of  de- 
nominational division  the  Spirit  of  God  is  brooding 
to-day  and  a  new  conscience  is  speaking  for  Chris- 
tian reorganization.  Time  and  the  war  with  mighty 
creative  fingers  have  been  at  work  upon  the  Church 
of  Christ  to  soften  and  mellow  the  severities  and 


12 


Introduction 


angularities  of  the  sects.  Bolivar,  the  great  Wash- 
ington of  South  America,  cried  out  in  despair 
when  all  his  attempt  to  unite  his  people  proved 
fruitless.  "Alas!'  he  said,  "I  have  ploughed  the 
sand  and  it  has  no  consistency  or  unity."  For 
some  decades  past  narrow-visioned  Churchmen 
have  mouthed  their  denominational  shibboleths — 
Baptist,  Presbyterian,  Episcopalian,  Methodist, 
Congregationalist,  Disciple  of  Christ — but  to-day 
prophets  of  reconciliation  and  apostles  of  a  more 
united  Church  are  popular,  and  their  ploughs 
shall  find  fertile  ground.  The  call  of  Christ  to 
bind  up  the  wounds  of  war  is  so  urgent  and  in- 
sistent that  that  Church  which  now  wastes  time  to 
plead  denominational  issues  stands  anathema  and 
convicted  before  her  Lord  of  high  treason  and 
betrayal. 

Several  years  ago  Bishop  Boyd  Carpenter  and 
the  Dean  of  Durham  visited  an  American  con- 
ference in  behalf  of  Christian  union  and  gave 
startling  expression  to  the  conviction  that,  unless 
the  churches  ceased  preaching  their  divisive, 
sectarian  issues,  their  baptisms  and  apostolic  suc- 
cessions, and  addressed  themselves  to  the  holy 
task  of  binding  together  the  nations  in  the  bond 


Introduction 


13 


of  brotherhood,  some  great  calamity  would  befall 
Europe  and  the  world.  And  now  that  the  pre- 
dicted "Pentecost  of  calamity"  has  fallen,  surely 
the  Church  of  Christ  will  not  fail  to  learn  to-day 
what  it  refused  to  learn  then,  namely,  the  shame 
and  scandal  and  wickedness  of  presenting  a  divided 
front  to  the  sin  of  the  world.  It  is  worse  than 
wormwood  and  gall,  it  is  heart-ache  and  heart-sob, 
to  invoice  the  numberless  hairsplittings,  two-by 
fourisms,  and  dogcollarisms  of  our  denominational 
Christianity.  The  world  has  a  right  to  lay  accusa- 
tion against  the  churches  that  for  many  years  they 
have  wasted  strength  on  trivialities  and  found 
themselves  helpless  in  great  crises. 

But  anxious  hearts  are  beating  to-day  the  mes- 
sage that  a  new  hour  has  come  for  our  troubled 
Israel.  Surely  now  is  the  accepted  time  and  now 
the  effectual  and  open  door  of  opporunity  to  throw 
upon  this  problem  of  Church  reorganization  all 
the  tremendous  weight  of  public  opinion.  Why 
should  we  not  tear  down  the  divisive  fences 
through  which  we  have  been  crawling  like  naughty 
boys  these  past  decades?  Why  not,  as  Principal 
Selbie  said,  shake  ourselves  free  from  our  evasions 
and  shufflings  and  be  manly  and  open,  walking  in 


14  Introduction 

the  daylight  of  Unity?  Must  the  Church  alone  to- 
day defend  division  when  all  the  other  organiza- 
tions of  the  world  move  toward  unity ! 

In  the  closing  days  of  February,  1814,  when 
Europe  was  under  the  shadow  of  defeat  from 
Napoleon,  the  Allied  Powers — England,  Prussia, 
Austria,  Russia — met  in  conference  at  Chaumont. 
Just  before  Chaumont,  Austria,  Prussia,  and  Rus- 
sia were  sick  to  death  of  war  and  would  gladly 
have  patched  up  a  craven  peace  with  Napoleon. 
But  at  the  Conference  of  Chaumont  the  Allied 
Powers  found  unity  and  they  sacredly  bound  them- 
selves together  to  battle  until  France  should  be 
humbled  and  Napoleon  unseated.  Within  two 
months  the  new  unity  of  Chaumont  was  visible ;  the 
Allies  were  in  Paris  and  on  April  6th,  1 8 14,  Napo- 
leon abdicated.  The  Church  of  Christ  has  much 
to  learn  from  military  science  and  it  cannot  too 
soon  take  to  its  heart  the  urgency  of  Unity  of  effort 
in  the  warfare  against  principalities  and  powers 
and  spiritual  evil  in  high  places.  The  war  has 
profoundly  solemnized  the  Church  and  an  hour  of 
insistence  has  struck  like  the  Reformation  hour  of 
the  1 6th  Century,  an  hour  pregnant  with  destiny 


Introduction 


15 


like  the  Pentecostal  hour  of  the  ist  Century;  it 
is  an  hour  in  which  to  close  up  the  breaches  in 
the  ramparts  of  Christianity. 

A  conviction  now  burns  in  many  devout  Chris- 
tians that  the  next  twent}'-five  or  fifty  years  will 
witness  one  of  the  greatest  religious  revivals  in 
the  history  of  Christendom.  Romain  Rolland  has 
it  that  the  war  has  already  demonstrated  two 
things,  the  power  of  Hell  and  the  present  weakness 
of  the  Christian  Church.  To  think  that  during 
all  these  years  of  military  preparation  the  Church 
never  organized  its  conscience  to  combat  it!  The 
war  shall  not  have  been  totally  in  vain  if  the 
Church  is  shaken  out  of  its  lethergy  and  slumber 
and  division.  Like  the  daughter  of  Abraham 
whom  Satan  had  bound  lo !  these  years,  so  the 
Church  needs  the  healing  touch. 

Forgive,  O  Lord,  our  severing  ways, 

The  separate  altars  that  we  raise, 

The  varying  tongues  that  speak  thy  praise. 

Suffice  it  now  in  time  to  be 

Shall  one  great  Temple  rise  to  Thee, 

Thy  Church  our  broad  Humanit)'! 

Thoughtful  minds  to-day  are  doubtful  about  the 
continuance  of  denominationalism  but  ever  re- 


i6 


Introduction 


newed  confidence  is  forthcoming  regarding  the 
Church  itself  against  which  the  gates  of  Hell  can- 
not prevail.  Denominational  pleas  are  as  dead 
as  a  dodo  and  ready  for  burial;  shibboleths,  points 
of  bristling  antagonism,  the  incubus  of  division 
must  yield  to  the  spirit  of  unity  in  the  bond  of 
peace.  It  has  been  remarked  that  we  are  living 
in  one  of  those  spiritual  crises  of  history  that 
constitutes  a  second  coming  of  our  Lord;  that 
if  a  Hebrew  prophet  were  alive  he  would  describe 
the  world  situation  in  glowing  apocalyptic  lan- 
guage announcing  the  end  of  the  age  and  the  de- 
scent of  the  Lord  on  the  clouds  of  Heaven.  In 
this  renewed  spiritual  appearance  of  our  Lord  one 
of  the  sweet  tokens  of  it  shall  be  a  new  spirit  of 
cooperation  in  His  Church.  The  Christian  ship 
shall  no  longer  be  as  one  propelled  by  a  few  hand- 
kerchiefs held  before  the  breeze  but  driven  by  the 
united  sails  raised  to  the  wind  of  God's  Pente- 
costal Spirit.  The  time  rapidly  approaches;  the 
days  are  prophetic  and  the  hours  are  racing  and 
tripping  over  one  another  to  greet  the  Divine 
consummation. 


Introduction  i 

It  will  come!    It  will  come!    As  the  day  comes 

When  the  night  is  done, 
And  the  silver  streak  on  the  ocean's  cheek 

Grows  into  the  mighty  sun! 

Walter  M.  Haushalter. 

New  York  City, 
July,  I  gig. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Part  i 

Christian  Unison  23 

Part  ii 

Christian  Uniformity  47 

Part  hi 

Christian  Unity  71 

Part  iv 

Christian  Union  97 


PART  I 

CHRISTIAN  UNISON 


''There  are  diversities  of  gifts,  hut  the  same 
Spirit.  And  there  are  diversities  of  ministration, 
hut  the  same  Lord.  For  as  the  hody  is  one  and 
hath  many  memhers,  so  also  is  Christ.  If  the  foot 
shall  say,  Because  I  am  not  the  hand  I  am  not  of 
the  hody,  it  is  not  therefore  not  of  the  body.  God 
set  the  memhers  each  one  of  them  in  the  hody  as 
it  pleased  Him.  The  eye  cannot  say  to  the  hand, 
I  have  no  need  of  thee;  or  again  the  head  to  the 
feet,  I  have  no  need  of  thee.  Nay,  much  rather, 
those  memhers  of  the  hody  which  seem  to  he  more 
feehle  are  necessary.  God  tempered  the  hody 
together,  giving  more  abundant  honor  to  that  part 
which  lacked,  that  there  should  he  no  schism  in 
the  hody.  Now  ye  are  the  hody  of  Christ."  Paul, 
I  Cor.  12:4-27. 

"Be  ye  not  called  masters;  One  is  your  Master, 
even  Christ,  and  all  ye  are  brethren."  Jesus,  Matt, 
23:10. 


THE  RECONSTRUCTION  OF 
THE    AMERICAN  CHURCH 


CHRISTIAN  UNISON 


S  one   surveys   the    gamut   of  Christian 


Quaicer,  Baptist,  Presbyterian,  Episcopal,  one 
must  confess  an  amazement  at  the  general  the- 
ological attitude  upon  the  subject  of  the  healing 
powers  of  the  Church.  If,  outside  a  few  chosen 
sects,  one  gives  voice  to  his  faith  in  the  healing 
Christ  of  to-day,  those  with  theological  ramrods 
down  their  backs  will  hasten  to  convict  such  an 
one  of  fanaticism  and  apologize  for  him  to  the 
neighbors.  Most  orthodox  churches  have  now  as- 
sumed that  those  great  legacies  of  healing  miracles 
ceased  when  the  Apostles  fell  asleep.  And  yet 
there  is  no  other  subject  more  clearly  set  forth 
in  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  than 
the  perpetuity  of  the  healing  power,  the  perpetuity 

23 


Churches    to-day,    Scientist,  Methodist, 


24  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

of  every  ordering  and  furniture  and  gift  of  the 
New  Testament  days.  Jesus  Himself  had  a  two- 
fold ministry  to  sinful  souls  and  suffering  bodies 
and  He  commissioned  His  followers  to  heal  the 
sick;  and  when  He  departed  His  earthly  ministry 
He  gave  a  commission  to  His  disciples  to  go  into 
all  the  world.  The  signs  to  follow  them  that 
believed  were  healing  of  the  sick  and  casting  out 
of  devils.  Jesus  did  not  separate  the  commission 
to  preach  from  that  to  heal,  nor  did  He  confine  it 
to  the  Twelve,  nor  did  He  place  any  time  limit 
upon  its  power.  With  rugged  exegesis  the  Church 
will  do  well  to-day  to  accept  all  the  great  com- 
mission, and  instead  of  limiting  it  with  dates  and 
provisos,  give  it  a  solemn  Amenl 

The  Apostles  themselves  did  not  unbraid  the 
twofold  cord  of  promise  but  went  out  on  a  two- 
fold commission  to  preach  and  to  heal,  in  the 
name  of  One  Who  promised  that  they  would  do 
greater  things  than  He  because  He  went  unto 
the  Father.  Dr.  Uhlhorn,  who  has  thoroughly 
mastered  the  evidence  on  the  case,  proves  con- 
clusively that  these  gifts  of  healing  continued  to 
operate  into  the  second  and  third  centuries.  Jesus 
had  made  no  provision  to  arrest  the  stream  of 


Christian  Unison 


25 


divine  manifestations,  and  in  the  writings  of  the 
Church  Fathers  we  find  abundant  testimonies  to 
the  performance  of  the  same  kind  of  miracles  of 
healing  known  to  Peter  and  John  and  Paul.  Justin 
Martyr,  Tertullian,  Origen,  Irenius,  are  eloquent 
in  their  testimonies  of  the  souls  won  through 
bodies  healed.  The  weight  of  these  and  similar 
testimonies  is  increased  by  the  fact  that  most  of 
the  great  spiritual  revivals  of  faith  of  the  last 
nineteen  centuries  have  had  that  accompaniment 
of  the  gifts  of  healing.  Consider  the  Walden- 
sians,  that  faithful  people  who  kept  the  fires  of 
faith  burning  through  the  Papal  darkness;  in  their 
Church  law  they  "hold  it  an  article  of  faith  to 
anoint  with  oil  and  heal  the  sick  as  declared  by 
James,  and  any  despiser  of  this  ordinance  is  to  be 
punished  and  corrected  according  to  the  rules  of 
the  Evangelical  Law."  Or  consider  Zinzendorf 
of  the  Moravians:  "I  owe  this  testimony  to  my 
beloved  Church  that  Apostolic  powers  are  there 
manifested  in  healing  of  maladies,  cancers,  con- 
sumptives by  prayer."  Or  consider  the  "Scot 
Worthies,"  with  their  modem  Acts  of  the  Apos- 
tles, or  the  healing  powers  of  the  Huguenots.  And 
what  shall  we  say  more  for  time  would  fail  us  to 


26  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

mention  Bruce  and  George  Fox  and  Alexander 
Campbell. 

When  one  considers  that  all  these  testimonies 
are  recorded  of  the  holiest  men  the  Church  of 
Christ  has  ever  known,  it  ought  to  give  food  for 
reflection  to  those  who  contend  that  the  gifts 
of  healing  have  departed  the  present-day  Church 
of  Christ.  Here  surely  is  a  mass  of  evidence  few 
would  wish  to  condemn  as  utterly  false.  All  the 
mighty  gifts  of  God  are  meant  to  be  perpetual; 
justification,  santification,  redemption,  as  given 
by  Jesus  to  the  world,  have  not  been  abrogated 
or  annuled.  Why  then  the  gift  of  healing?  Chris- 
tian healing  was  not  meant  to  be  one  of  those 
African  rivers  growing  narrower  and  narrower 
until  lost  in  the  desert,  but  a  mighty  stream  broad- 
ening to  the  sea.  John  in  Revelation  describes 
the  tree  of  Life  whose  leaves  are  for  the  healing 
of  the  nations  and  "it  bears  twelve  manner  of 
fruit,  and  yields  its  fruit  every  month."  That  tree 
has  given  out  fresh  shoots  and  leaves  of  piety  and 
healing  and  fruit  with  every  passing  month 
through  the  centuries  since  John's  vision. 

Now  these  words  on  the  healing  function  of 
Christ's  Church  are,  given  at  this  length  in  intro- 


Christian  Unison 


27 


duction  because  the  world  to-day  is  agonizing  for 
healing. 

The  planet  in  this  hour  is  torn  by  the 
wounds  of  war  and  where  is  there  any  power 
given  under  Heaven  among  men  whereby  it  can 
be  healed  other  than  through  Christianity!  The 
wounds  of  war,  the  toxemia  of  sin,  the  blood 
poison  of  international  bitterness,  the  soul-sickness 
of  paganism,  the  ennui  of  world  weariness  "fair 
hidden  yet  full  confessed,"  the  cancer  of  militar- 
ism, the  melancholia  of  materialism — all  await  and 
reach  out  for  the  healing  touch  of  the  Body  of 
Christ.  Will  the  Church  to-day  be  equal  to  the 
challenge  of  a  sick  and  wounded  world  and  prove 
Physician  ? 

Avowedly  and  confessedly !  Before  the  Church 
can  effectively  cure  the  ills  of  the  world  it  must 
cure  itself!  Physician,  heal  thyself.  "Ye  are  the 
Body  of  Christ,"  says  Paul,  "and  members  one 
of  another."  "As  the  body  is  one  and  hath  many 
members,  so  also  is  Christ.  If  the  foot  shall 
say,  Because  I  am  not  of  the  body  is  it  not  there- 
fore not  of  the  body?  And  if  the  ear  shall  say, 
Because  I  am  not  the  eye  I  am  not  of  the  body, 
is  it  not  therefore  not  of  the  body?    But  now  hath 


28  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

God  set  the  members  each  one  of  them  in  the  body- 
as  it  pleased  Him.  The  eye  cannot  say  to  the 
hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee;  nor  again  the  head 
to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need  of  thee.  Nay,  much 
rather,  tliose  members  of  the  body  which  seem  to 
be  more  feeble  are  necessary;  and  those  parts  of 
the  body  which  we  think,  to  be  less  honorable,  upon 
these  we  bestow  the  more  abundant  honor.  God 
tempered  the  body  together,  giving  more  abundant 
honor  to  that  part  which  lacked,  that  there  should 
be  no  schism  in  the  body,  but  that  the  members 
should  have  the  same  care  one  for  another.  And 
whether  one  member  suffer  all  the  members  suffer 
with  it;  or  one  member  is  honored  all  the  members 
rejoice  with  it.  Now  ye  are  the  body  of  Christ 
and  severally  members  thereof."  "Now  there  are 
diversities  of  gifts  but  the  same  Spirit.  And  there 
are  diversities  of  administration  but  the  same 
Lord.  And  there  are  diversities  of  working  but 
the  same  God  Who  worketh  in  all  things." 

Paul's  analogy  is  more  than  a  metaphor  or 
simile;  it  is  meant  to  be  literal  transcript  of  fact. 
"Ye  are  the  body  of  Christ  I"  That  body  of 
Christ  cuddled  by  Mary  in  Nazareth,  that  body 
of  Christ  presented  at  the  Temple  for  dedication, 


Christian  Unison 


29 


that  body  of  Christ  torn  and  tempted  and  victori- 
ous in  the  wilderness,  that  body  of  Christ  that 
touched  and  healed  and  "out  of  whom  went  vir- 
tue," that  body  of  Christ  broken  for  us  on  Calvary, 
that  body  of  Christ  glorified  and  risen — that  body 
of  Christ  is  the  Church !  The  Church  is  not  a 
mere  organization;  it  is  an  organism!  And  if 
Christ's  body  had  healing  powers  in  its  touch  when 
He  dwelt  in  the  flesh  "full  of  grace  and  truth," 
why  should  not  His  body,  His  reincarnation,  His 
Church,  possess  the  healing  power  to-day  for  the 
world's  agonizing  and  pitiable  sores?  The  answer 
to  this  is  that  the  members  of  Christ's  body  do 
not  have  the  coordination  of  movement,  the  unison 
of  mind  and  heart  and  purpose,  necessary  to  this 
healing  task.  Once  the  Church  or  Body  of  Christ 
acquires  that  unison  of  brain,  heart,  hand,  foot, 
eye, — all — then  the  Great  Physician  shall  be  able 
to  heal  the  Twentieth  Century  World  I 

A  quarter  of  a  century  ago  Phillips  Brooks 
looked  sadly  out  upon  the  divided  condition  of 
Christendom  and  declared  its  divisions  reminded 
him  of  the  various  members  of  an  orchestra  tun- 
ing up.  But  to  what  are  we  tuning  up?,  he  asks. 
We  are  tuning  up  to  the  keynote  of  Christian 


30  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

service  and  love,  the  Social  Gospel  and  the  Social 
task  of  the  Church.  If  the  Churches  were  willing, 
thought  Brooks,  to  lose  their  lives  in  social  service 
they  would  gain  them  in  Christian  unison,  the 
unison  of  the  vast  orchestra  of  God.  The  task 
of  presenting  the  truth  and  music  of  Christ  with 
melody  to  the  world  is  quite  too  great  a  task  for 
any  one  Church  fellowship.  Each  member  of 
the  orchestra  ought  not  to  look  only  on  its  own 
things  but  on  the  things  of  others.  Bishop  An- 
derson of  the  Conference  of  1908  ennunciated  a 
fine  principle  when  he  declared  that  we  must  reach 
Christian  reorganization  not  by  excluding  but  by 
including  all  faiths  and  forms  of  Christianity. 
Bishop  Anderson  calls  for  a  religion  of  maximums, 
not  of  minimums.  "Let  all  the  separated  parts 
of  Christendom  pour  out  the  treasures  of  their 
experiences;  and  let  them  equally  desire  to  receive 
from  one  another  the  gifts  they  do  not  already 
possess.  So  shall  we  have  in  the  great  Church  of 
the  future  not  an  impoverished  form  of  Christian- 
ity, but  a  Church  which  is  enriched  with  all  the 
wealth  of  the  Christian  ages."  In  the  harmony 
of  such  a  divine  orchestra  the  Methodists  shall  not 
say  to  the  Presbyterians,  I  have  no  need  of  thee; 


Christian  Unison 


31 


nor  the  Baptists  to  the  Christian  Scientists,  I  have 
no  need  of  thee;  nor  the  Quakers  to  the  Catholics, 
I  have  no  need  of  thee.  And  such  a  unison  can 
be  produced  only  through  the  Great  Orchestra 
Leader,  Jesus  Christ,  who  for  this  long  time  has 
endured  the  contradiction  of  sinners. 

To  effect  this  longed-for  unison  or  orchestration 
or  harmony  of  the  Church  of  Christ  three  steps 
are  discernible  and  possible : — municipal  federa- 
tion, national  federation,  international  federation. 

The  proposal  of  municipal  federation  ap- 
proaches most  immediately  to  the  heart  of  the 
problem,  which  in  Carlyle's  phrase  is  a  "hungry 
problem."  Why  should  not  all  the  Churches  of 
Christ  of  a  city  (or,  where  the  city  be  large,  of  a 
portion  of  a  city)  officially  delegate  Elders  or 
Deacons  or  Bishops  to  a  general  Board  of  Di- 
rectors? Let  these  officers  of  local  churches  so 
delegated  be  empowered  to  act  in  matters  of  com- 
mon interest  to  all  the  Churches.  Let  every  local 
church  claiming  to  follow  and  propagate  Christ 
be  given  representation  on  a  pro  rata  basis  of 
membership.  Such  a  general  Board  of  Bishops  or 
Elders  or  Deacons  of  the  municipal  Church  of 
Christ  would  accomplish  untold  good  for  the  cause 


32  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

of  religion.  In  an  overchurched  quarter,  union  of 
local  units  could  be  effected  with  tremendous  econ- 
omy of  money  and  effort.  In  one  Western  city 
of  one  thousand  population  three  churches,  Bap- 
tist, Congregational,  and  Presbyterian,  united  re- 
cently to  worship  as  one  congregation  in  one  build- 
ing and  under  one  spiritual  leader.  The  three 
Churches  are  kept  intact  and  a  pro  rata  division 
of  missionary  funds  made.  It  is  Church  Unison. 
Such  a  General  Board  of  Elders  of  the  Municipal 
Church  of  Christ  could  also  plan  unison  of  em- 
phasis and  appeal  on  civic  matters.  Movements 
for  prohibition,  relief  of  social  evils,  missionary 
propaganda,  educational  and  spiritual  ideals  could, 
through  such  a  centralized  municipal  Bishopric, 
find  unity  and  coherence  and  consequent  power. 
The  appointment  of  such  a  municipal  Bishopric 
would  demand  a  great  deal  of  Christian  love  and 
tolerance.  Much  history  would  have  to  be  for- 
gotten. But  brotherhood,  in  Roosevelt's  phrase, 
is  a  "weasel-word"  that  has  the  power  to  suck 
life  blood.  Brotherhood  must  prevail  and  the 
spirit  of  Anti-Christ  sectarianism  scourged  out  of 
the  conference  room.  Perhaps  this  tide  of  brother- 
hood would  rise  so  high  as  to  give  inter-denomina- 


Christian  Unison 


33 


tional  assent  to  the  membership  of  all  professed 
believers  In  the  body  of  Christ  and  a  free  and 
unhampered  exchange  of  membership  in  local  con- 
gregations. Perhaps  this  tide  of  brotherhood  and 
spiritual  fellowship  would  rise  so  high  as  to  give 
inter-denominational  assent  to  the  Holy  Spirit's 
ordination  of  all  the  Ministry.  Such  a  municipal 
Bishopric  or  Eldership  could  foster  such  a  divine 
unison  of  the  body  of  Christ  as  to  heal  the  city  of 
its  ills,  and  make  the  Kingdom  of  God  more  than 
a  haphazard,  random  movement,  aye!  make  it  a 
concerted,  progressive  revelation  until  each  city 
becomes  a  New  Jerusalem. 

Another  step  toward  unison  will  be  the  National 
Federation  of  Churches,  a  National  Bishopric  of 
delegated  representatives  of  all  communions  of  the 
Body  of  Christ,  such  delegated  representatives 
being  vested  with  power  to  act  upon  matters  of 
common  concern  to  all.  As  Frank  Mason  North, 
President  of  the  Church  Federal  Council,  has  aptly 
pointed  out,  "Federation  arrived  a  good  while 
ago  in  the  realm  of  the  State.  There  are  signs 
that  it  is  likely  to  remain.  'United  States'  desig- 
nates a  government;  it  does  more — it  discloses  and 
describes  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  social 


34  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  political  order.  That  principle  is  the  coor- 
dination of  organized  group  units,  that  is,  democ- 
racies, under  representative  control  and  by  mutual 
agreement,  the  acceptance  of  a  common  pro- 
gramme and  the  working  toward  common  objec- 
tives. The  soundness  of  the  principle  was  tested 
by  honest  men  fifty  years  ago  in  a  fierce  conflict 
of  arms,  and  a  half  century  of  extraordinary  na- 
tional development,  both  in  ideals  and  practice, 
has  justified  the  verdict.  Progress  tends  that  way. 
Every  new  national  agitation  lifts  tides  of  demo- 
cratic purpose  higher.  Educate  Mexico,  and 
Mexico  will  become  the  United  States  of  Mexico. 
A  half  dozen  republics  of  Central  America  are 
feeling,  not  for  one  another's  throats,  but  for 
one  another's  hearts,  under  the  lure  of  a  possible 
United  States  of  Central  America." 

The  majestic  sweep  of  this  idea  is  now  coming 
into  the  horizon  of  national  Church  affairs.  A 
suggestion  of  such  federation  occured  in  Japan 
in  191 1,  a  federation  comprising  twenty-four  com- 
munions the  purpose  of  which  was  declared  to  be 
"to  secure  a  united  action  in  the  spread  of  the 
Gospel."  A  similar  federation  of  the  Churches 
of  India  grew  out  of  a  conference  in  Jubbulpore 


Christian  Unison 


35 


in  April,  1909.  Its  interdenominational  constitu- 
tion provides  that  "the  federating  churches  agree 
to  recognize  each  others'  discipline  and  to  wel- 
come members  of  other  federating  churches  into 
Christian  fellowship  and  communion."  In  China, 
Africa,  Madagascar,  Korea,  such  federations  are 
duplicated.  One  of  the  finest  fruits  of  this  move- 
ment of  unison  and  one  of  the  clearest  indications 
of  the  labour  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  to  be  seen  in 
the  expedient  of  a  division  of  territory  in  order 
to  minimize  the  evils  of  denominationalism.  The 
adjustment  in  the  Philippine  Islands  affords  one 
of  the  earliest  examples  of  the  plan.  After  the 
American  occupation  in  1898  the  islands  were 
thrown  open  to  American  evangelization.  The 
missionary  societies  saw  the  danger  of  duplication 
and  overlapping,  the  danger  of  quartering  their 
strength  by  duplicating  the  number  of  organiza- 
tions. Many  of  the  missionary  boards  conferred 
and  distinct  fields  were  assigned  to  Baptists,  Con- 
gregationalists,  Methodists,  Disciples  of  Christ, 
Presbyterians.  The  same  regimen  was  adopted  in 
China  after  the  Boxer  rebellion,  and  in  Mexico, 
and  in  South  America  after  the  Panama  Con- 
ference.   Such  expedients  are  more  than  a  truck- 


36  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

ling  peace;  they  are  steps  toward  a  larger  goal. 
Such  unison  is  not  a  tower  of  Babel  erected  to  the 
skies  to  end  in  confusion.  It  is  rather  the  co- 
operation of  the  wheels  of  a  watch  to  go  in  differ- 
ent directions,  yet  fulfilling  the  function  of  giving 
time. 

That  the  time  is  now  ripe  in  America  for  an 
enlargment  of  the  ideals  and  powers  and  functions 
of  the  Federated  Council  of  Churches,  is  a  con- 
viction that  daily  grows  with  enormous  expansion. 
What  surpassing  good  could  be  accomplished  by 
the  entire  body  of  Christ  of  America  functioning 
with  all  its  power  and  unity  upon  questions  of  war 
and  peate,  of  child  labour  and  social  evils,  of 
capital  and  labour,  of  intemperence  and  crime,  of 
national  betterment  and  spirit!  It  is  high  noon 
time  for  all  communions  to  throw  their  technical- 
ities and  false  courtesies  to  the  winds  and  leap  to 
the  need  of  the  hour — the  need  of  a  national 
Bishopric  of  the  Churches  of  Christ,  empowered 
to  act  for  the  millions  of  followers  of  our  Lord. 
Let  such  federation  be  not  only  in  terms  of  senti- 
ment but  of  delegated  power.  The  One  Hundred 
and  Thirtieth  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyter- 
ian Church,  convened  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  in  June, 


Christian  Unison 


37 


191 8,  has  issued  one  of  the  latest  and  freshest  chal- 
lenges to  the  plea : 

"We  recommend  the  following  action: 

"That  we,  the  commissioners  to  the  One  Hun- 
dred and  Thirtieth  General  Assembly  now  in  ses- 
sion at  Columbus,  Ohio,  do  declare  and  place  on 
record  our  profound  conviction  that  the  time  has 
come  for  organic  Church  union  of  the  evangelical 
Churches  of  America. 

"That  this  Assembly  hereby  overtures  the  na- 
tional bodies  of  the  evangelical  communions  of 
America  to  meet  with  our  representatives  for  the 
purpose  of  formulating  a  plan  of  organic  union. 

"That  the  Assembly's  committee  on  cooperation 
and  union  be  authorized  and  directed  to  designate 
the  time  and  place,  not  later  than  January  i ,  1 9 1 9, 
for  the  above  named  convention;  to  prepare  a 
suitable  invitation;  to  fix  the  ratio  of  representa- 
tion and  appoint  the  delegates  of  our  body;  to 
prepare  a  tentative  plan  of  organic  union  for 
presentation,  and  to  attend  to  all  necessary  ar- 
rangements. 

"That  as  a  beginning  the  moderator  and  stated 
clerk  be  directed  to  wire  the  four  national  Church 
bodies  now  in  session,  asking  them  whether  they 


38  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

will  appoint  delegates  to  such  a  convention  on 
organic  union  between  the  evangelical  bodies,  ex- 
plaining that  we  have  voted  in  favor  of  it." 

Even  at  this  moment  the  fruits  of  National 
Federation  are  being  prepared  by  the  planting  of 
fertile  seed.  Conferences  and  surveys  and  pro- 
grammes are  under  way  for  a  United  Missionary 
appeal  to  the  nation  for  hundreds  of  millions  of 
dollars  for  the  evangelization  of  the  country  and 
of  the  world.  It  seems  too  good  to  be  believed. 
The  precedent  of  Liberty  Loans  and  War  chests 
gives  the  united  Church  faith  to  go  on  to  the  chal- 
lenge of  its  own  claims  in  Christ.  Little  wonder 
that  the  Bishop  of  London  quotes  Mr.  Myers 
glorious  lines  in  "St.  Paul" : 

Dreamer  of  dreams?  We  take  the  taunt  with  gladness, 
Knowing  that  God,  beyond  the  years  we  see, 

Has  wrought  the  dreams  that  count  with  you  for  madness 
Into  the  texture  of  the  world  to  be. 

The  world  incredulously  is  still  gazing  at  the 
achievements  of  the  United  War  Work  Campaign. 
That  was  Christian  Unison  with  heart,  mind,  and 
will.  Every  humanitarian  in  America  owed  it  to 
his  own  soul  to  understand  the  great  movement 
and  to  have  his  share  in  it.    It  had  the  approval 


Christian  Unison 


39 


of  President  Wilson  and  the  War  Department  and 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  American  pubhc.  Seven 
War  Rehef  Organizations  were  included  in  the 
-  appeal,  and  everyone  was  made  to  know  their 
splendid  services  at  home  and  abroad  in  mobiliz- 
ing the  spiritual  resources  of  our  nation  and  in 
bringing  effective  victory  to  our  cause.  Of  the 
$170,000,000  asked  for,  the  Young  Men's  Chris- 
tian Association  was  to  receive  58  per  cent; 
the  Young  Woman's  Association  8  per  cent;  the 
Knights  of  Columbus  17  per  cent;  the  Jewish 
Welfare  Board,  the  War  Camp  Community 
Service,  the  Library  Association,  and  the  Salva- 
tion Army  about  equal  shares  of  the  remainder. 
When  it  was  proposed  to  use  one  pledge  card  to 
unify  the  appeal  for  these  diverse  causes,  it  did 
not  imply  or  faintly  suggest  the  surrender  by  any 
one  of  them  of  its  distinctive  character  or  au- 
tonomy. Each  organization  had  its  traditions, 
background,  equipment,  morale,  principles,  which, 
if  properly  prized  and  which,  if  preserved,  would 
make  for  the  strongest  possible  service.  The 
men  who  headed  that  United  War  Work  Cam- 
paign were  level-headed  and  sure-footed  men  who 
had  a  vision  of  Christian  Unison. 


40  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

The  United  War  Work  Compaign  then  went  to 
its  task.  When  it  had  its  funds  it  went  with  the 
soldier  to  the  camps,  accompanied  him  to  the 
transport,  met  him  at  debarkation,  shared  with 
him  the  dangers  of  the  front.  President  Wilson's 
remark  is  significant:  "It  is  evident  that  the  seven 
societies  should  unite  their  appeals  in  order  that 
the  spirit  of  American  mercy  may  be  expressed 
without  distinction  of  race  or  religious  opinion." 

The  United  War  Work  Campaign  has  made  a 
road  over  which  the  Federated  Council  of 
Churches  of  Christ  is  about  to  travel  again.  Most 
of  the  great  missionary  societies  of  America  are 
about  to  appeal  in  unison  for  a  Mission  Chest  for 
the  evangel  of  America  and  the  world.  An  unac- 
customed honesty  is  come  upon  us;  we  are  shed- 
ding our  shams  and  sophisms  and  petty  differences ! 
Our  hearts  are  beating  in  Christian  Unison,  praise 
God  I 

One  further  objective  of  unison  lies  before  the 
Church  of  Christ,  namely,  an  International  Bish- 
opric of  all  Churches  of  Christ  of  the  World 
to  foster  ideals  of  peace  and  humanity  and  to 
bring  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  into  the  King- 
dom of  our  Lord  and  Christ.  Prophets  are  speak- 


Christian  Unison 


41 


ing  to-day  for  a  League  of  Nations  to  enforce  the 
peace  of  the  world.  Why  not  also  a  League  of 
all  the  Churches  of  Christ  of  the  world  to  preach 
against  militarism  and  materialism  and  national 
bitterness,  and  to  usher  in  the  reign  of  spiritual 
friendship  and  democracy?  If  the  Christian  con- 
science of  the  world  be  organized  into  unison,  if 
the  entire  body  of  Christ  throughout  the  world 
be  focused  into  coodinated  action,  there  is  no 
great  ideal  it  could  not  achieve. 

Suffice  it  now  in  time  to  be 

Shall  one  great  Temple  rise  to  Thee, 

Thy  Church  our  broad  humanity. 

White  flowers  of  love  its  walls  shall  climb, 
Sweet  bells  of  peace  shall  ring  its  chime, 
Its  days  shall  all  be  holy  time. 

The  hymn,  long  sought,  shall  then  be  heard. 
The  music  of  the  world's  accord. 
Confessing  Christ,  the  inward  word! 

That  song  shall  swell  from  shore  to  shore, 
One  faith,  one  love,  one  hope  restore, 
The  seamless  garb  that  Jesus  wore! 

The  world  war,  with  a  Calvary  passion  and 
compassion,  is  vocal  with  agony  and  pain  for  the 


42  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

consummation  of  this  event.  May  God  pour  out 
His  Spirit  in  these  last  days  upon  all  flesh  and 
give  us  the  vision  without  which  we  perish. 

"O  God  of  Peace,  Thou  art  a  witness  to  the 
division  in  Thy  house  which  we  have  made  by 
our  constant  quarrels,  and  we  acknowledge  our 
transgression.  Give  us  the  hope  of  the  morning 
by  a  genuine  desire  for  fellowship  with  Thy  whole 
Church,  for  we  are  brothers,  feeling  our  way 
towards  Thee  and  towards  each  other.  Only  in 
Thy  light  can  we  find  the  way.  Without  Thy 
shield  we  are  incompetent  to  render  Thee  service 
in  the  day  of  battle  and  danger.  Thou  hast 
created  us  in  Thine  image,  redeemed  us  by  Thy 
blood,  made  our  bodies  sanctuaries  for  Thy  Holy 
Spirit,  and  we  desire  that  oneness  among  our- 
selves for  which  Thou  didst  plan  in  the  ages  past, 
even  as  Thou  didst  plan  for  the  gift  of  Thine  only 
begotten  Son.  In  the  spirit  of  humility  and  faith 
we  supplicate  Thee  for  patience,  courtesy  and 
brotherliness.  Then  we  shall  love  in  spite  of  our 
failures  and  we  shall  reach  the  summit  as  our 
brothers  of  other  communions  climb  to  the  heights. 
To  Thee  be  all  the  praise  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord.  Amen." 


Christian  Unison 


43 


In  Charles  R,  Kennedy's  delightful  drama, 
The  Servant  In  The  House^  is  a  description  of 
the  Church  Universal.  The  Bishop  of  Benares, 
from  all  accounts  had  had  much  experience  in 
church  building  in  India.  "I  am  afraid,"  said 
Manson,  "you  will  not  think  my  Church  an  alto- 
gether substantial  concern.  You  must  see  it  in  a 
peculiar  light  and  some  people  never  see  it  at 
all.  It  is  no  dead  pile  of  stone  and  timber  but 
a  living  temple.  When  you  enter  it  you  hear  a 
sound  as  of  ten  thousand  organs  and  the  music  of 
a  great  hymn  chanted.  If  you  have  ears  to  hear 
you  will  understand  it  to  be  the  beating  of  human 
hearts  and  the  nameless  music  of  men's  souls. 
If  you  have  eyes  to  see  you  will  understand  that 
the  pillars  of  it  are  the  bodies  of  men  and  the 
frescoes  the  flesh  of  women  and  children.  And 
the  faces  of  little  babes  laugh  out  from  every  cor- 
ner. It  is  yet  building  and  being  built  upon.  Some- 
times the  work  goes  on  in  deep  darkness,  some- 
times in  blinding  light;  sometimes  beneath  the 
burden  of  anguish,  sometimes  to  the  tune  of  great 
laughter.  And  sometimes — sometimes — in  the 
silence  of  the  night  one  may  hear  the  tiny  ham- 
merings of  the  comrades  in  the  dome,  the  com- 


44  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

rades  who  have  gone  before."  Robert,  the  ob- 
ject of  redemption,  the  drunkard,  stands  by  en- 
tranced at  Manson's  description  of  the  Church. 
"Is  they  any  hands  needed  for  the  drains  in  that 
Church?"  "Aye,"  said  Manson,  "drains  are  a 
very  important  element  in  that  Church — at  pres- 
ent." The  war  will  have  accomplished  a  sweet 
benediction  to  the  Church  of  Christ  of  the  world 
if  it  drain  away  its  sectarianism  and  give  it  the 
divine  spirit  and  proportions  of  the  Church  pro- 
jected and  idealized  by  her  Lord  Christ. 

In  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries  in  Eng- 
land there  were  curious  phenomena  of  the  healing 
of  a  disease  known  as  the  "King's  Evil."  The 
touch  of  the  hand  of  the  sovereign  was  thought  to 
have  therapeutic  power,  especially  in  the  cases  of 
epilepsy  and  scrofula.  So  far  as  historians  are 
able  to  trace  the  practice,  its  histoiy  began  with 
Edward  the  Confessor  in  England  and  with  St. 
Louis  in  France.  Charles  the  Second  is  said  to 
have  touched  ninety-two  thousand  people  during 
his  reign.  Whenever  the  King  was  to  travel 
through  the  realm  the  clergy  were  solemnly  noti- 
fied and  great  numbers  of  the  parish  sufferers 
turned  out  for  miracles  of  healing.   The  ceremony 


Christian  Unison 


45 


conducted  with  great  pomp  is  described  by  Ma- 
caulay.  When  the  King  appeared  the  clergy  in 
fresh  canonicals  stood  round  the  canopy  of  state 
and  read,  "They  shall  lay  their  hands  on  the  sick 
and  they  shall  recover."  Then  His  Majesty  the 
King  touched  the  ulcers  and  hung  a  gold  coin 
about  the  patient's  neck.  Prayers  and  benediction 
followed  and  the  procession  moved  on.  The  be- 
lief in  the  efficacy  of  the  King's  touch  was  prac- 
tically universal,  and  the  historian  Lecky  says  its 
genuineness  was  attested  by  the  Church,  the  uni- 
versities, and  the  general  consent  of  the  people. 
The  belief  in  this  miracle  of  healing  persisted 
through  the  English  Revolution  and  down  to  the 
time  of  the  French  Revolution.  Shakespeare  has 
a  fine  passage  in  Macbeth  on  the  Royal  Touch — 

"Comes  the  King  forth  to-day,  I  pray  you?" 

"Aye,  sir!    There  are  a  crew  of  wretched  souls 
That  stay  his  cure — and  at  his  touch, 
Such  sanctity  hath  heaven  given  his  hand, 
They  presently  amend!" 

"A  most  miraculous  work  in  this  good  King 
Which  often  since  my  stay  in  England 
I  have  seen  him  do!    How  he  solicits  Heaven 
Heaven  itself  best  knows.    But  the  people  ulcerous,  piti- 
ful to  the  eye, 
The  mere  despair  of  surgery,  he  cures." 


46  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 


This  gift  of  the  King's  Touch  was  practiced  by 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant  Kings  and  Queens. 
King  James  the  First  wanted  to  discard  it  as  an 
outworn  superstition,  but  his  councellors  urged  him 
not  to  abate  such  a  prerogative  of  the  crown. 

All  this  is  the  story  of  the  King's  Touch  of  old. 
The  world  is  weary  and  weeping  in  this  hour  for 
the  healing  touch  of  King  Christ.  When  Christ 
walked  in  Palestine  the  multitudes  brought  unto 
Him  their  sick  and  He  touched  them  and  they 
were  healed.  But  the  Christ  and  His  body  and 
His  King's  Touch  have  not  departed  the  world. 
Christ  is  reincarnated  in  His  Church.  "Ye  are 
the  body  of  Christ  and  members  one  of  another." 
"And  these  shall  be  the  signs  that  follow  them  that 
believe,  they  shall  heal  the  sick,  and  if  they  touch 
any  deadly  thing  it  shall  not  harm  them."  The 
world  now  awaits  the  healing  touch  of  the  Body  of 
Christ  the  Great  Physician,  to  cure  it  of  its  war 
and  materialism  and  sin.  Is  it  possible  that  the 
curative  powers  of  the  Church  of  Christ  to-day 
await  an  answer  to  the  challenge — "Physician,  heal 
thyself  1" 


PART  II 

CHRISTIAN  UNIFORMITY 


"//  there  be  any  exhortation  in  Christ,  any  con- 
solation of  love,  any  fellowship  of  the  Spirit,  any 
tender  mercies  and  compassions,  he  of  one  accord, 
having  the  same  mind.  Do  nothing  through  fac- 
tion or  vainglory,  hut  in  lowliness  of  mind  let  each 
count  other  better  than  himself.  Have  this  mind 
in  you  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,  who,  exist- 
ing in  the  form  of  God,  counted  not  the  being  on 
an  equality  with  God,  a  thing  to  be  grasped,  hut 
emptied  himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  servant." 
Paul,  Philippians,  2:1-7. 

"The  cup  of  blessing  which  we  bless,  is  it  not  a 
communion  of  the  blood  of  Christ?  The  bread 
which  we  break,  is  it  not  a  communion  of  the  body 
of  Christ?  We  who  are  many  are  one  bread,  one 
body;  for  we  all  partake  of  the  One  Bread."  Paul, 
I  Cor.  10:16-17. 


CHRISTIAN  UNIFORMITY 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON,  in  one  of  his 
most  charming  essays,  entered  a  plea  for 
individualism  and  free  diversity.  "Nature,"  said 
Emerson,  "abhors  complaisances  which  threaten  to 
melt  the  world  into  a  lump,  and  hastens  to  break 
up  such  maudlin  agglutinations.  For  nature 
wishes  everything  to  remain  itself;  and,  whilst 
every  individual  strives  to  grow  and  exclude,  and 
to  exclude  and  grow,  to  the  extremities  of  the 
universe,  and  to  impose  the  law  of  its  being  on 
every  other  creature,  nature  steadily  aims  to  pro- 
tect each  against  every  other.  Each  is  self-de- 
fended. Nothing  is  more  marked  than  the  power 
by  which  individuals  are  guarded  from  individuals 
in  a  world  where  every  benefactor  becomes  so 
easily  a  malefactor." 

Protestantism  in  many  quarters  to-day  is  anx- 
iously inquiring  if  this  Emersonian  individualism 
may  be  expected  always  to  obtain.  Or  shall  we 
begin  to  map  out  programmes  of  uniformity — uni- 

49 


50  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

formlty  of  creed,  uniformity  of  ritual,  uniformity 
of  Church  government?  Or,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  uniformity  at  best  be  only  a  wonderful 
"one-horse  shay  built  in  a  logical  way,"  destined 
again  to  break  up  or  to  break  down  into  diver- 
sity? 

A  survey  of  the  field  reveals  many  ambitious 
proposals  to-day  among  the  denominations  of 
Christendom  for  a  closer  uniformity  of  Church 
government  and  life,  but  most  of  these  ambitious 
proposals  have  the  fault  of  Caesar's  ambition,  of 
"overvaulting"  and  ending  in  defeat.  One  might, 
to  begin  with,  mention  the  Roman  Catholic  uni- 
formity suggested  in  the  kindly  and  venerable  let- 
ter of  Bishop  Bonomelli  to  the  Edinburgh  Mis- 
sionary Conference  of  1910.  "We  Catholics  can- 
not suffer  to  come  into  question  what  we  have 
declared  to  be  the  truth.  But  you,  my  ever  dear 
brothers,  especially  you  English  .  .  .  come  over 
the  gulf  to  us.  We  will  throw  our  arms  about 
your  neck.  We  shall  all  be  sons  of  the  same 
mother  Church  and  the  same  Father  who  is  in 
Heaven."  Here  in  Romanism  we  could  find  a 
uniformity  of  teaching,  a  uniformity  of  member- 
ship, a  uniformity  of  ministry  of  the  sacraments, 


Christian  Uniformity 


51 


which  the  whole  Christian  world  enjoyed  or  other- 
wise for  a  thousand  years.  Our  thanks  are  to 
Bishop  Bonomelli ! 

Another  proposal  for  Christian  uniformity 
comes  from  the  Episcopal  brethren.  The  Lam- 
bert Conference  of  Episcopal  Churches  in  1888 
propounded  to  the  world  what  by  this  time  is 
known  as  the  Episcopalian  Quadrilateral.  It 
placed  uniformity  upon  four  essential  points. 
First,  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  as  the  revealed  Word  of  God.  Sec- 
ond, the  Nicene  Creed  as  sufficient  statement  of 
Christian  doctrine.  Third,  the  two  Sacraments, 
Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  always  to  be  ad- 
ministered with  the  words  and  elements  used  by 
Christ.  Fourth,  the  historic  Episcopate,  locally 
adapted  to  the  people  called  into  uniformity  with 
Christ's  Body.  This  Quadrilateral  was  followed 
up  in  1 9 10  by  a  prayer  from  the  House  of  Bishops 
that  all  Christian  communions  throughout  the 
world,  which  confess  our  Lord  Christ  as  Saviour, 
unite  in  a  fraternal  conference  on  Christian  faith 
and  order.  A  good  commentary  on  this  proposal 
or  Quadrilateral  comes  in  the  words  of  an  Epis- 
copal Bishop  of  Saskatchewan:    "Reunion  within 


52  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  between  the  churches  is  indeed  a  thing  we  may 
pray  for.  But  we  shall  never  get  it  so  long  as 
we  exalt  the  scaffolding  above  the  building,  the 
shell  above  the  kernel,  the  Church  discipline  above 
the  inward  and  spiritual  verities  of  the  Gospel." 

It  is  of  challenging  and  critical  interest  to  note 
the  amount  of  conscience  burning  at  this  move- 
ment for  the  rapproachment  of  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  and  the  Nonconformist  Churches.  It 
is  a  conscience  that  burns  beyond  the  barriers  of 
uniformity  and  passes  into  the  field  of  pragmatic 
union.  The  war  has  given  tremendous  impulse 
to  the  movement.  A  committee  made  up  of  An- 
glican and  Free  Church  leaders.  Bishop  Gore  and 
J.  H.  Jewett  and  J.  H.  Shakespeare  have  already 
opened  the  preliminary  engagements.  Now  like 
a  trumpet  blast  comes  the  book  of  Rev.  Mr.  Shake- 
speare, The  Church  At  The  Crossroads.  Scath- 
ing and  caustic  criticisms  have  been  heaped  upon 
Mr.  Shakespeare's  acceptance  of  Episcopacy.  But 
the  volume  of  discussion,  talked  and  written,  upon 
the  overtures  for  uniformity  betrays  a  burning 
conscience  in  the  English  people  to  have  the  con- 
fusion cleared  up. 


Christian  Uniformity 


53 


"The  question  of  reordination  will  inevitably 
arise,"  says  Mr.  Shakespeare. 

A  way  must  be  found  at  a  later  stage  and  in  a  calm 
and  gentle  atmosphere.  It  must  be  considered  simply  as 
involving  regularity  within  the  Church  of  England,  and 
not  validit}'.  In  the  most  emphatic  language,  every  sug- 
gestion that  Free  Church  ministers  are  to  cast  any  doub^ 
or  suspicion  upon  their  own  ordination  to  the  ministry 
must  be  expressly  excluded.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
must  be  no  readiness  to  press  formal  difficulties  or  to  fail 
to  see  that  if  in  the  united  Church  the  essential  elements 
of  Congregationalism  and  Presbyterianism  are  included, 
it  is  not  unreasonable  to  crown  the  edifice  with  that  prin- 
ciple of  government  which  is  so  dear  to  the  Episcopal 
Church.  There  are  several  ways  in  which  a  solution 
might  be  found,  but  if  the  reconciliation  is  to  have  its 
proper  fruitfulness  it  is  certain  that  there  must  be  a 
striking  historic  act  in  which  visible  unity  is  achieved. 

The  criticism  upon  Mr.  Shakespeare's  proposal 
is  clearly  set  forth  by  Sir  William  Robertson 
Nicoll: 

For  a  Free  Church  minister  to  submit  to  reordination 
by  a  Bishop  because  the  minister  considers  the  act  to  be  a 
harmless  form,  whereas  the  Bishop  himself  holds  it  to  be 
a  most  solemn  and  vital  necessity,  must  appear  to  plain 
men  as  shockingly  insincere. 

Mr.  Shakespeare  would  accept  prelacy  because  the 
spirit  of  the  age  demands  reunion.  But  if  democracy 
means  anything  it  means  that  authority  is  conferred  by 
the  people  and  not  imposed  upon  the  people.    It  has  no 


54  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 


room  for  the  divine  right  of  either  kings  or  bishops.  And 
democratic  Christianity  must  assuredly  be  organized  on 
the  basis  of  the  inalienable  liberties  of  the  common  Chris- 
tian people,  through  whom  the  Holy  Spirit  still  vouch- 
safes to  work  out  His  holy  will.  We  are  told  that  civil- 
ized nations  must  learn  to  agree  or  perish ;  and  the  same 
applies  to  Christian  churches.  But  what  does  agreement 
involve?  We  look  forsvard  with  eager  hearts  to  a  League 
of  Nations  and  to  a  League  of  Churches;  but  what  kind 
of  a  League?  Brotherhood  between  England  and  Amer- 
ica does  not  require  that  Great  Britain  should  become  a 
republic  or  that  the  United  States  should  accept  mon- 
archy. Such  a  suggestion  on  either  side  would  be  gro- 
tesque and  insulting.  It  would  be  resented  as  keenly  as 
Free  Churchmen  resent  the  proposal  that  their  ministers 
should  consent  to  be  reordained  by  bishops. 

The  apprehensions  of  Sir  William  Nicoll  do 
not  appear  to  be  entirely  groundless  if  one  is  to 
infer  anything  from  the  recent  appearance  of  the 
Bishop  of  London  in  Kingsway  Hall,  London. 
For  the  Anglican  Bishop  to  appear  at  a  Wesleyan 
Conference  is  a  tremendous  departure  from  prec- 
edent to  be  sure.  But  for  Dr.  Ingram  to  re- 
pudiate the  policy  of  federation  and  to  assure  his 
hearers  that  "there  must  be  no  tampering  with 
the  doctrines  encased  in  the  historic  creeds,"  gives 
us  his  latitude  and  longtitude  on  the  question  at 
stake.    The  Bishop  goes  on: 


Christian  Uniformity 


55 


My  suggestion  is  this,  that  after  a  certain  date — we 
will  call  it,  so  as  to  show  that  we  are  not  too  dilatory, 
but  it  can  not  be  by  that  date,  January  i,  1920 — all  or- 
dinations should  be  carried  out  in  both  churches  as  to 
satisfy  the  members  of  both  churches.  You  see  the  point 
is  this — to  arrive  at  a  point  after  which  schism  shall  cease. 
If  you  can  get,  first  of  all,  a  date  after  which  all  ordina- 
tions will  be  considered  valid  by  both  bodies,  however 
long  it  takes,  you  have  arrived  at  a  point  at  which  eventu- 
ally, automatically,  the  division  between  the  two  bodies 
will  cease. 

And  almost  contemporaneous  with  this  comes 
on  unofficial  but  valid  sanction  of  overtures  of 
marriage  by  Episcopalians  and  Congregationalists. 

We  agree  to  acknowledge  that  the  recognized  position 
of  the  Episcopate  in  the  greater  part  of  Christendom  as 
the  normal  nucleus  of  the  Church's  ministry  and  as  the 
organ  of  the  unity  and  continuity  of  the  Church  is  such 
that  the  members  of  the  Episcopal  Churches  ought  not  to 
be  expected  to  abandon  it  in  assenting  to  any  basis  of  re- 
union. 

We  also  agree  to  acknowledge  that  Christian  churches 
not  accepting  the  Episcopal  order  have  been  used  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  His  work  of  enlightening  the  world,  con- 
verting sinners  and  perfecting  saints.  They  came  into 
being  through  reactions  from  grave  abuses  in  the  Church 
at  the  time  of  their  origin,  and  were  led  in  response  to 
fresh  apprehensions  of  divine  truth  to  give  expression  to 
certain  necessary  and  permanent  types  of  Christian  ex- 
perience, aspiration  and  fellowship,  and  to  secure  rights 
of  Christian  people  which  had  been  neglected  or  denied. 
No  Christian  community  is  involved  in  the  necessity  of 


56  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

disowning  its  past;  but  it  should  bring  its  own  distinctive 
contribution  not  only  to  the  common  life  of  the  Church, 
but  also  to  its  methods  of  organization.  Many  customs 
and  institutions  which  have  been  developed  in  separate 
communities  may  be  preserved  within  the  larger  unity. 
What  we  desire  to  see  is  not  grudging  concession,  but  a 
willing  acceptance  of  the  treasures  of  each  for  the  com- 
mon enrichment  of  the  united  Church. 

All  this  is  struggle  and  suffering  and  writhing 
and  wheedling  and  cajoling  for  a  solution  of  the 
problem  of  Reconstruction  through  the  avenue  of 
Uniformity.  The  three  most  outstanding  efforts 
for  Uniformity  to-day  are  to  be  found  in  the  claims 
of  the  Catholic,  Episcopalian,  and  Baptist  or  Dis- 
ciple of  Christ  communions.  The  latter  com- 
munion or  the  latter  two  communions  make  their 
protest  against  a  variegated  Christendom  on  the 
basis  of  New  Testament  Church  polity.  The  as- 
sumption of  the  claim  is  that  Jesus  Christ  and  His 
Apostles  meant  First  Century  polity  and  ordi- 
nances and  creeds  and  observances  to  be  binding 
upon  all  future  generations.  Christendom,  be  it 
soberly  and  solemnly  said,  has  been  busy  for  some 
years  now  testing  whether  the  assumption  of  a 
Divine  Uniformity  is  true  or  false.  And  when 
Christendom  announces  the  results  of  its  findings 


Christian  Uniformity 


57 


we  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  Uniformity  in 
the  discard  I 

Of  such  quantity  and  kind  are  these  proposals 
for  a  uniformity  of  Church  polity  and  Christian 
faith  and  order  that  one  is  led  to  wonder  if  the 
Church  wants  or  needs  uniformity,  and  if  so,  then 
how  much?  But  far  back  of  the  question  of  uni- 
formity of  Church  life  and  antecedent  to  it  is  the 
question  of  the  final  authority  in  our  Christian 
religion.  Most  Protestant  communions  have 
placed  the  final  authority  for  faith  and  order  in 
the  Bible,  preferring  in  some  mystical  way  the 
authority  of  the  New  Testament  over  the  Old 
Testament.  The  Catholic  Brethren  have  allowed 
the  Church  the  final  authority,  at  least  making 
room  for  new  promptings  of  the  Spirit  as,  "time 
makes  ancient  good  uncouth."  Most  Protestant 
churches  deny  their  own  freedom,  handicap  them- 
selves with  anachronisms,  and  by  making  a  Book 
the  final  authority  assume  that  the  spirit  of  inspira- 
tion and  leadership  died  when  the  Fathers  fell 
asleep.  The  Roman  Catholic  theory,  if  not  its 
practice,  has  graciously  assumed  that  the  same 
Spirit  which  inspired  the  Bible  still  works  in  the 
hearts  of  men,  or  at  least  in  a  few  men.  Cardinals 


58  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  Popes.  Protestantism  is,  however,  awaken- 
ing to  the  fact  that  it  has  relinquished  a  great 
deal  in  rejecting  the  Holy  Spirit  as  the  ultimate 
source  of  authority.  Jesus  declared  it  expedient 
for  His  disciples  that  He  should  go  away,  for 
if  the  visible  Jesus  did  not  depart  the  Holy  Spirit 
would  not  come,  but  upon  the  advent  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  He  would  lead  them  into  all  truth.  Why 
should  Protestantism  hold  to  some  external  au- 
thority in  Church  Government  when  a  progressive 
revelation  is  given  us  by  the  living  Christ?  Why 
could  not  representatives  of  all  Christendom  meet 
to-day  in  a  new  Pentecost  and  have  that  Holy 
Spirit  poured  out  upon  them  to  "lead  them  unto 
all  truth"  concerning  Christian  reorganization  of 
faith  and  order?  Is  it  because  we  do  not  believe 
in  the  living  God,  or  the  indwelling  Holy  Spirit, 
or  is  it  what  Hutton  calls  the  "spiritual  fatigue  of 
the  world?"  In  our  democratic  government  of 
America  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  land 
are  authoritative,  but  not  the  final  authority. 
Rather  is  it  the  Supreme  Court,  which  has  power 
to  interpret  our  Constitution  or  nullify  our  laws, 
which  is  jinal  authority.  And  to  place  the  Holy 
Spirit  as  the  ultimate  of  authority  in  faith  and 


Christian  Uniformity 


59 


order  does  not  dethrone  the  authority  of  the  Bible ; 
it  only  enforces  and  interprets  and  modifies  the 
authority  of  the  Bible.  When  in  the  first  Century 
the  followers  of  Christ  did  not  submit  to  the 
authority  of  a  Book  but  to  the  authority  of  a 
Living  Christ  in  His  Holy  Spirit,  when  the  Dis- 
ciples in  Jerusalem  decided  the  Gentile  question  by 
the  leadership  not  of  a  Book  but  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  why  should  Christ's  Church  to-day  be  held 
and  bound  by  some  canonical  Church  Order,  and 
why  should  it  not  have  that  same  gracious  leading 
of  that  Holy  Spirit?  "Beyond  the  sacred  page  I 
seek  Thee,  Lord." 

The  question  is  not  content  but  must  reach  still 
further!  Did  Jesus  Christ  and  His  Apostles  set 
up  a  conception  of  religion  that  made  man's  rela- 
tion to  God  dependent  on  any  particular  rite  or 
observance  or  form  of  organization  ?  Is  any  man 
justified  in  declaring  any  outward  custom,  sign, 
ritual,  as  the  identification  of  the  true  Church? 
Is  Heaven  concerned  so  much  about  these  matters? 
Take  for  instance  some  of  the  Baptist  bodies  who, 
as  indicated  in  Mr.  Rockefeller's  recent  article, 
are  feeling  how  narrow-cornered  and  ill-grounded 
has  been  their  isolation.   The  thoroughgoing  fol- 


6o  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

lower  of  Christ  must  reject  these  mummified  de- 
nominational differences  and  cling  to  the  priest- 
hood of  all  believers,  the  unity  of  all  branches 
of  the  Christian  vine.  The  whole  drift  of  things 
through  this  war  will  leave  these  claims  of  exclu- 
sion and  enforced  uniformity  stranded  high  and 
dry.  The  new  world  after  the  war  will  have  little 
energy  to  spare  for  ritualistic  differences.  Prin- 
cipal Ritchie  has  an  admirable  remark  on  the 
situation:  "It  makes  men  hesitate  to  affirm  that 
the  New  Testament  prescribes  any  form  of 
Church  government.  Certainly  Episcopacy  can- 
not so  affirm,  its  own  scholarship  being  witness. 
There  are  very  grave  doubts  about  Presbyterian- 
ism  also.  Even  Congregationalism  can  no  longer 
be  unhesitatingly  dogmatic  here.  It  can  only  af- 
firm that  at  the  beginning  New  Testament 
Churches  were  autonomous  spiritual  societies.  It 
is  now  seen  that  Church  government  is  largely  a 
divine  expediency.  Anglican  scholars,  like  Light- 
foot,  Hatch,  Gwatkin,  and  Rashdall,  have  under- 
mined Anglo-Catholicism  and  left  tottering  to  their 
fall  dogmas  like  Apostolic  Succession  and  the  His- 
toric Episcopate.  On  the  mission  field  the  Spirit  of 


Christian  Uniformity 


6i 


God  works  mightily  by  what  may  be  described  as 
an  Episcopal-Methodist-Congregationalism.  The 
broad  result  is  that  the  ancient  saying,  'Ubi  Chris- 
tus  ibi  Ecclesia'  ('Where  Christ  is  there  is  the 
Church')  is  seen  again  to  be  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  the  Church.  All  else  is  commentary,  and 
even  sectarianism  cannot  long  live  healthily  on 
that.  The  fellowship  of  holy  men,  women,  and 
children,  and  not  any  specific  ecclesiasticism,  is  the 
divine  Society  on  earth.  That,  says  Paul,  is  'the 
Body  of  Christ.'  " 

A  beautiful  incident  is  related  about  the  good 
Queen  Elizabeth  of  Austria  who,  in  the  early  nine- 
ties, used  to  go  to  Cape  Martin  in  France  for  her 
vacation.  She  stopped  at  the  immense  hotel  that 
stands  on  the  promontory  surrounded  by  pines  and 
fields  of  arbutus.  There  she  had  her  apartments 
in  simple  English  style  and  there  she  would  in- 
dulge her  peculiar  habits.  She  would  arise  early 
in  the  mornings  for  long  walks  and  was  famous 
for  her  generosity  through  the  countryside.  When 
the  Empress  first  came  to  Cape  Martin  she  in- 
quired solicitously  for  a  Church,  for  she  had  a 
deep  religious  persuasion.    She  was  told  that 


62  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

there  was  none  in  the  immediate  neighborhood. 
But  Queen  Elizabeth  demanded  that  a  chapel  be 
improvised  for  her  in  the  hotel  and  for  that  pur- 
pose she  selected  the  billiard  room.  Then  it  was 
recalled  that  the  laws  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  required  that  any  room  in  which  divine 
services  were  celebrated  must  first  be  consecrated 
by  the  archbishop  of  the  diocese.  It  was  found 
impossible  to  get  the  archbishop,  and  what  was 
to  be  done?  The  difficulty  was  overcome  in  a 
curious  and  unexpected  manner.  It  was  recalled 
that  an  ancient  law  of  the  Church,  one  never 
rescinded,  decreed  that  a  member  of  the  Order 
of  Malta  could  render  sacred  any  room  in  which 
he  dropped  his  mantle.  General  von  Berzer  who 
was  present  was  of  the  Order  of  Malta  and  he 
went  through  the  form  of  dropping  his  mantle  in 
the  billiard  room  and  it  was  accounted  consecrated 
for  a  chapel.  Thenceforth  on  every  Sunday  morn- 
ing the  Queen's  footmen  would  set  up  a  portable 
altar  before  the  chimney,  and  the  mantle  of  the 
Order  of  Malta  would  be  dropped,  and  that  spot 
became  the  Church  I 

It  is  very  fine  and  symbolic  but  its  theology  does 
not  go  far  enough  for  to-day  1 


Christian  Uniformity 


63 


What  is  the  Church  ?   The  Church  is  man 
When  his  awed  soul  goes  out 

In  reverence  to  the  mysteries  that  swathe  him  all  about; 
When  any  living  man  in  awe  gropes  Godward  in  his 
search 

Then,  in  that  hour,  that  living  man  becomes  the  living 
Church. 

When  communions  can  learn  to  drop  the  man- 
tle of  charity  then  the  Church  of  interdenomina- 
tional fellowship  begins. 

Very  frankly,  the  proposal  of  Church  uniform- 
ity is  futile.  There  should  always  be  diversities 
of  form  and  varieties  of  administration.  Nothing 
said  in  this  plea  for  unison  should  be  construed  as 
a  desire  for  uniformity.  Church  unity,  or  unanim- 
ity, the  unity  of  the  vine  as  Jesus  pictured  it,  or 
the  unity  of  the  body  as  Paul  described  it,  is  now 
an  accomplished  fact.  Unity  is  an  organic  thing 
in  a  tree  or  in  a  Church.  Church  union  and  feder- 
ation are  more  and  more  forthcoming  as  a  result 
of  our  unity.  But  union  is  a  mental,  psycho- 
logical, social  creation.  And  then  Church  unison 
is  an  achievement  like  the  blend  and  harmony  of 
a  musical  orchestra;  it  is  a  spiritual  achievement. 
But  Church  uniformity  would  be  mechanical  and 
frankly  undesirable.    Some  additional  Church  uni- 


64  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

formity  is  doubtless  needed,  and  will  work,  itself 
out  in  due  season.  But  it  cannot  be  emphasized 
too  much  that  an  interpretation  of  Church  unity 
or  union  or  unison  in  terms  of  Church  uniformity 
will  be  a  fatal  approach  to  the  problem.  Insist- 
ence upon  a  set  form  for  baptisms  and  com- 
munions, insistence  upon  one  form  of  creed  to  the 
exclusion  of  others,  insistence  upon  uniformity  of 
doctrine,  ritual,  Church  government,  would  prove 
fatally  contrary  to  the  whole  freedom-loving  spirit 
of  the  religion  of  Christ,  For  where  the  Lord 
is,  there  is  liberty;  "there  is  one  Spirit  and  many 
manifestations." 

There's  a  wideness  in  God's  mercy  like  the  wideness  of 
the  sea, 

There  is  mercy  in  His  justice  which  is  more  than  liberty. 
For  the  love  of  God  is  broader  than  the  measure  of  man's 
mind 

And  the  heart  of  the  Eternal  is  most  wonderfully  kind. 

To  insist  upon  uniformity  is  to  fall  into  the  old 
error  of  setting  bounds  and  habitations  to  the 
Spirit  of  God  which  Jesus  says  "Bloweth  where  it 
listeth.  You  know  not  the  comings  or  goings 
thereof."  Any  denomination  that  limits  the  place 
where  God's  spirit  may  blow,  that  holds  out  for 


Christian  Uniformity  65 


a  uniformity  of  all  others  to  its  own  individualism, 
is  on  bad  ground. 

A  few  years  ago  the  International  Committee 
that  was  formed  to  celebrate  the  one  hundred 
years  of  peace  between  Great  Britain  and  America 
offered  to  the  British  Government  as  a  permanent 
memorial  of  friendship  and  amity  a  statue  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  The  offer  was  accepted  by  the 
British  Government  and  a  fine  site  was  arranged 
for  Lincoln  near  Westminister  Abbey  on  Parlia- 
ment Square.  There  the  great  emancipator  will 
stand  in  bronze  near  the  court  of  St.  James.  But 
this  offer  of  peace  turned  out  to  be  an  apple  of 
discord,  and  American  was  plunged  into  a  storm 
of  art  controversy  concerning  the  best  statue  of 
Lincoln.  There  is  Borglum's  statue  of  Lincoln,  a 
sad  presentation  of  the  melancholy  rail-splitter. 
There  is  Ball's  statue  of  Lincoln  in  Boston,  and 
St.  Gauden's  statue  of  Lincoln  in  Chicago.  The 
art  object  that  brought  the  most  controvery  was 
Barnard's  statue  of  Lincoln  in  Cincinnati.  Pro- 
tests were  entered  against  some  of  these  statues 
as  defamatory  to  Lincoln.  The  art  critics  may 
disagree  about  the  physical  details  of  Lincoln  but 
the  world  agrees  upon  Lincoln's  spirit  and  person- 


66  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

ality.  So  the  details  of  the  Church  visible  may 
precipitate  differences  of  conviction  that  render 
uniformity  in  that  realm  impossible.  But  the 
Church  finds  its  unity  and  union  and  unison  in 
the  reality  and  personality  of  One  whom,  having 
not  seen,  we  love. 

A  forced  uniformity  of  creed  or  ritual  is  a  fatal 
approach  to  the  eager  problem  of  Church  Recon- 
struction. "There  are  diversities  of  gifts  but  the 
same  spirit.  And  there  are  diversities  of  minis- 
tration but  the  same  Lord.  For  as  the  body  is 
one  and  hath  many  members,  so  also  is  Christ." 
No  biologist  asks  for  uniformity  in  the  organic 
body.  The  eye  and  ear  and  hand  and  foot  have 
an  organic  unity  of  function.  But  they  do  not 
possess  uniformity.  The  instruments  of  an  or- 
chestra, the  piano,  the  violin,  the  brass  horns, 
do  not  possess  uniformity;  they  would  make  a  bad 
band  if  they  did.  But  they  possess  unison;  or  if 
they  do  not  they  are  no  orchestra.  So  also  is 
the  Church  of  Christ.  The  Methodists,  and  Pres- 
byterians, and  Baptists,  and  Episcopalians,  and 
all  the  other  brethren,  possess  a  sacred  unity.  God 
does  not  demand  a  tiresome  uniformity.  But  the 
world-mission  of  Christ  demands  a  blending  of  our 


Christian  Uniformity 


67 


denominational  individualisms  into  union  and 
unison. 

Kipling  saw  the  possibility  of  the  individual 
communion  to  attain  its  larger  self  in  the  social 
marriage  of  the  Over  soul,  the  union  and  unison 
of  the  Body  of  Christ: 

When  earth's  last  picture  is  painted 

And  the  tubes  are  twisted  and  dried, 

And  the  oldest  colours  are  faded 

And  the  youngest  critic  has  died; 

We  shall  rest,  and  faith  we  shall  need  it, 

Lie  down  for  an  aeon  or  two 

Till  the  Master  of  all  good  workmen 

Shall  set  us  to  work  anew. 

And  only  the  Master  shall  praise  us 
And  only  the  Master  shall  blame, 
And  none  shall  work  for  money 
And  none  shall  work  for  fame. 
But  each  for  the  joy  of  the  labour 
And  each  in  his  separate  star 
Shall  draw  the  thing  as  he  sees  it 
For  the  God  of  things  as  they  are. 


PART  III 

CHRISTIAN  UNITY 


"Give  diligence  to  keep  the  Unity  of  the  Spirit 
in  the  bond  of  peace.  There  is  one  body  and  one 
Spirit,  even  as  also  ye  were  called  in  one  hope  of 
your  calling;  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one 
God  and  Father  of  all  who  is  over  all,  and  through 
all,  and  in  all.  He  gave  some  to  be  apostles, 
prophets,  evangelists,  unto  the  building  up  of  the 
body  of  Christ,  till  we  all  attain  unto  the  unity 
of  the  faith  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Son  of  God, 
unto  a  fullgrown  man,  unto  the  measure  of  the 
stature  of  the  fulness  of  Christ."  Paul,  Ephesians, 
4:3-13- 

"I  am  the  Good  Shepherd — Other  sheep  I  have 
which  are  not  of  this  fold;  them  also  I  must  bring, 
and  they  shall  hear  my  voice;  and  they  shall  be- 
come one  flock,  one  shepherd."  Jesus,  John  10: 
14-16. 


CHRISTIAN  UNITY 


FEW  years  before  the  outbreak  of  the 


-/a.  European  War  an  incisive  article  was  pub- 
lished by  Dr.  Henry  Van  Dyke  in  "The  Con- 
tinent," voicing  the  anguish  of  our  divided  Prot- 
estantism. The  article  deserves  to  be  quoted  at 
length.  "What  trials  and  delays  must  be  en- 
dured, what  obstacles  and  difficulties  overcome, 
what  long  and  perilous  journeys  accomplished,  be- 
fore the  United  Church  is  reached,  God  only 
knows.  It  may  be  that  the  conflict  with  evil  must 
grow  sharper  and  more  bitter  before  Christians 
learn  that  division  means  defeat.  It  may  be  that 
the  shame  of  forsaken  temples  and  a  vanishing 
Sabbath  .  .  .  must  grow  deeper  to  make  men 
see  the  consequence  of  rivalry.  It  may  be  that 
disaster  and  humiliation  and  weakness  must  be- 
fall the  Christian  forces,  that  they  must  be  driven 
to  some  dreadful  battlefield  of  Armageddon  to 
make  them  stand  together  against  the  united 
powers  of  darkness  and  unbelief.    Or  it  may  be, 


72  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  God  grant  it,  that  the  lesson  will  be  learned 
in  brighter  paths  and  slowly  spelled  out  in  syllables 
of  hope."  It  is  now  painfully  clear  that  the 
prophesied  Armageddon  was  at  hand  and  it  forces 
the  overwhelming  conviction  that  the  world  must 
behold  the  oneness  of  the  Christian  power,  the 
unity  of  our  spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace,  if  Christ 
is  to  prevail. 

Church  Unison,  Church  Uniformity,  Church 
Unity,  Church  Union,  are  phrases  that  body  forth 
a  problem  and  also  a  solution.  Experimental  psy- 
chologists declare  it  possible  to  unveil  a  picture 
inch  by  inch,  each  successive  square  inch  being 
covered  up  as  the  next  is  unveiled,  so  that  the  eye 
beholds  the  entire  picture,  but  the  mind  receives 
no  generalized  impression  of  the  total  effect.  Some- 
what of  this  deceptive  illusion  seems  to  have 
dominated  and  prejudiced  the  popular  mind  in  its 
effort  to  understand  the  unity  and  union  of  the 
Church  of  Christ.  The  problem  of  Church  unity 
and  union  is  philosophically  to  most  denominations 
so  much  a  problem  of  confusion  and  entanglement, 
and  it  is  a  problem  upon  which  we  have  had  so 
much  more  heat  than  light,  that  a  volume  or 


Christian  Unity 


73 


monograph  attempting  a  clarifying  philosophy  of 
Christian  unity,  uniformity,  union,  and  unison  may 
not,  in  the  economy  of  the  day's  literature,  be 
distinctly  out  of  place.  If  the  problem  were 
merely  one  of  sentimental  good  will  it  were  not 
so  difficult.  All  can  agree  sentimentally  with  the 
Psalmist  that  it  is  "beautiful  for  brethren  to  dwell 
together  in  unity."  But  when  it  comes  to  the 
neglect  or  overthrow  of  age-long  dogmas  and 
traditions,  when  it  comes  to  the  incorporation  of 
of  the  sentimental  and  theoretical  desire  for  co- 
operation into  pragmatic  action,  then  the  fun  be- 
gins! "A  strange  world,  my  masters!"  The 
clarifying  and  constructive  programme  seems  re- 
luctant to  come  forth  from  its  hiding  place.  The 
whole  hazy  and  nubulous  problem  at  present  of  a 
League  of  Nations  or  a  League  of  Churches  is 
tantalizingly  like  the  psychology  of  awakening  in 
the  morning;  we  have  a  dim  sense  of  thereness,  but 
not  as  yet  of  this  and  that. 

A  proper  modesty  should  forbid  the  presump- 
tion of  a  complete  and  universal  "whitherward" 
of  Church  Unity  and  reconstruction  (to  use  an  ex- 
pression of  Carlyle).    But  it  will  be  helpful  to 


74  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 


realize  a  tentative  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and 
pillar  of  fire  by  night  leading  us  toward  the  prom- 
ised land. 

The  confusion  attendant  upon  this  problem  of 
Reconstructing  the  unity  of  the  American  Church 
introduces  the  necessity  of  a  clean  and  clear-cut 
definition.  Our  words  and  phrases  are  such  so- 
ciable creatures  and  so  soon  fall  in  love  and  lose 
their  individuality  in  marriage  that  many  of  our 
problems  become  word  problems,  with  issues  false- 
ly stated. 

The  purpose  of  definition-making  should  be  to 
create  a  working-tool,  not  a  Greek  vase  to  ad- 
mire; this  tool  in  its  nature  must  be  a  clear  con- 
cept.   The  physicist,  by  studying  the  impact  of 

,               .                         Mass  X 
two  movmg  bodies,  arrives  at  a  concept   — — - 

Velocity^ 

 .   He  looks  about  for  a  name  and  con- 

2 

eludes  that  the  symbol,  "Energy,"  serves  his  pur- 

M  X 

pose.    Therefore  he  says  =  Energy. 

The  all-important  matter  to  him  is  the  concept,  not 
the  word.  Back  of  every  good  definition  must  be 
a  "working-tool  concept,"  as  William  James  calls 


Christian  Unity 


75 


it.  This  concept  will  have  value  in  so  far  forth 
as  it  is  able  to  step  out  of  the  laboratory  and  do 
work  in  concrete  life.  And  in  the  definition  of 
her  problem  of  Reconstruction  the  Church  must 
labour  to  get  back  of  the  symbols  to  a  working- 
tool  concept  of  unison,  uniformity,  unity,  and 
union. 

The  simple,  straightforward  statement  of  the 
problem,  demands  that  the  Church  to-day  publish 
the  fact  of  her  unity.  Christian  unity  is  now  an 
achievement,  an  accomplishment,  a  possession  of 
that  great  organization  known  as  Christ's  Body. 
The  problem  of  individual  sectarian  effort  and  uni- 
fied progressive  programme  is  not  a  matter  of 
antithesis  but  of  synthesis.  The  forest  and  the 
trees  are  one,  indivisible  and  vital,  back  of  all 
their  various  manifestations.  To-day,  as  never  be- 
fore in  her  history,  the  Church  is  under  pressing 
and  divine  necessity  to  declare  the  fact  and  the 
nature  of  the  existent  social,  intellectual,  and  spir- 
itual unity  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  and  to  estimate 
the  forces  making  in  society  for  and  against  it. 
Neither  Protestantism  nor  Catholicism  dare  any 
longer  neglect  the  moral  conclusion  that  the 
Church  Universal  is  One,  possesses  a  unity  of  life 


76  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  effort  and  aim  and  fruitage  and  destiny  in  her 
Lord. 

"There  is  one  body  and  one  Spirit,  even  as  we 
were  called  in  one  hope  of  our  calling;  one  Lord, 
one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God  and  Father  of 
all  who  is  over  all,  and  through  all,  and  in  all." 
What  all  members  of  the  Body  of  Christ  pathetic- 
ally need  at  this  moment  is  a  consciousness  and  an 
awareness  of  that  organic  unity.  To  the  glorious 
realization  and  attainment  of  the  consciousness  of 
our  unity  the  Spirit  of  God  is  now  calling  His 
children.  A  full  realization  of  that  vital  unity 
may  come  through  federation  or  union,  yea,  per- 
haps through  even  a  further  uniformity.  Out 
of  this  union  and  uniformity  of  the  multiple  organ- 
izations shall  pour  a  unison  of  evangelical  effort 
that  will  fulfil  the  prayer  of  our  Lord  for  the 
oneness  of  His  Body. 

It  is  rapidly  becoming  the  conviction  of  all 
Christendom  that  underneath  its  multiple  divers- 
ities, the  invisible  body  of  Christ's  Church  now 
possesses  a  vital,  organic  Unity.  There  is  one 
spirit  and  many  manifestations.  It  is  a  unity  per- 
haps that  Cometh  not  with  observation.  Eye  hath 
not  seen  it,  neither  hath  it 'entered  as  yet  into  the 


Christian  Unity 


77 


heart  of  our  full  self-consciousness.  But  in  and 
through  the  visible  diversities,  the  unseen  body  of 
Christ,  the  Church  which  needs  no  Temple,  for 
the  Lord  God  the  Almighty  is  the  Temple  there- 
of, possesses  the  unity  of  Christ  and  the  Father. 
As  Christ  and  the  Father  were  vitally  One,  in 
evangelistic  outlook  and  desire  for  the  world's  re- 
demption, so  we  are  both  many  and  one.  It  is 
a  conclusion  that  is  irresistible. 

Among  the  beautiful  legends  that  associate  with 
the  cities  and  towns  and  country  places  along  the 
River  Rhine  is  a  story  that  floats  about  Diissel- 
dorf ;  it  is  called  "The  Silence  of  the  Critics."  It 
is  claimed  that  a  great  audience  assembled  one 
day  in  the  Market  place  of  Diisseldorf  to  view 
the  unveiling  of  a  great  statue,  an  equestrian  statue 
of  John  William  the  Elector.  At  the  great  mo- 
ment Gabriel  the  artist  dropped  the  curtain  and 
revealed  the  fine  figure  of  John  William  on  his 
charger.  The  audience  breathed  with  admiration. 
The  artist's  heart  swelled  with  pride  when  the 
Elector  himself,  John  William,  shook  his  hand 
publicly  with  approval.  But  some  of  the  critics 
who  stood  about  were  jealous  of  the  artist  and 
took  their  revenge  by  depreciating  the  achieve- 


78  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

ment.  One  found  fault  with  the  hoofs,  another 
with  the  curve  of  the  neck,  another  with  the  ears; 
in  short,  no  part  met  with  their  approval.  After 
listening  to  the  critics,  Gabriel  turned  to  John  Wil- 
liam and  broke  silence;  he  asked  permission  to  do 
the  work  over.  The  scaffolding  went  up  again 
and  the  statue  was  screened  from  all  prying  eyes. 
The  artist  was  secured  from  every  interruption. 
For  days  the  heavy  clang  of  the  artist's  hammer 
were  heard  by  the  passer-by  in  the  square.  At 
last  the  audience  was  brought  together  again,  and 
in  the  presence  of  John  William  and  the  critics 
the  statue  was  again  unveiled.  John  William 
turned  inquiringly  to  the  critics.  He  has  taken 
our  artistic  suggestions,  they  said;  the  neck,  the 
hoofs,  all  are  perfect  now.  The  artist  turned  to 
John  William  and  said  quietly,  "Your  majesty, 
to  show  you  the  worth  of  the  critics  let  me  say, 
the  statue  is  unchanged.  The  hammering  was 
to  demolish  the  criticisms." 

It  shall  be  so  with  all  attempts  to  demolish  the 
moral  and  spiritual  unity  of  the  Church.  The 
unity  of  the  Church  never  has  been  destroyed  and 
never  can  be.  It  is  identified  with  the  Life  of 
Christ  in  the  souls  of  His  people.    Church  uni- 


Christian  Unity 


79 


formity  or  church  union  have  often  enough  been 
impaired,  it  Is  true ;  but  of  Church  unity,  the  unity 
of  the  unseen  Body  of  Christ,  we  may  say  with 
the  sculptor,  It  is  unchanged.  Its  continuity  has 
been  since  the  "days  of  His  flesh." 

Our  times  of  cautious  and  sober  psychology  are 
nervously  Impatient  of  definitions  In  terms  of  an- 
atomy and  structure;  we  are  hungry  and  thirsty 
for  definitions  in  terms  of  function  and  purpose. 
Pushing  aside  our  "left-over"  ideas  and  our  aged 
theological  refinements  it  must  be  said  that  Jesus 
Christ  and  God  were  One  In  functional  terms  and 
in  the  pragmatic  sense  of  their  moral  sympathy 
and  their  spiritual  communion  and  their  evan- 
gelical purpose.  In  what  other  sense  they  were 
One  matters  to  finite  minds  little.  In  that  moral, 
spiritual,  functional,  evangelistic,  sense  in  which 
Jesus  Christ  and  God  were  One,  so  Christ's  Body, 
the  Church  Is  One.  Jesus  prayer  was  so  framed: 
"As  Thou,  Father,  art  in  Me  and  I  in  Thee,  that 
they  may  be  One."  With  the  consciousness  of 
this  Unity,  the  aspiration  of  our  prayer  and  pro- 
gramme Is  that  through  a  closer  Union  and  Uni- 
formity, God  may  lead  His  Church  Into  a  more 
and  more  sympathetic  Unison.  We  possess  Unity; 


8o  Recoiuit  action  of  the  American  Vhurch 

to  the  end  of  realizing  a  harmonious  Unison  the 
denominations  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar  of  cooperative  Union  and  if  need  be  of  Uni- 
formity I 

Whether  this  creed  of  unity  be  an  inverted 
Jacob's  ladder  projected  by  reason,  or  whether  it 
be  originally  let  down  from  heaven,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  angels  of  progress  are  ascending 
and  descending  in  response  to  our  wrestlings. 
From  Plato  and  John,  to  Royce  and  the  social 
psychologists,  philosophic  Idealism  has  ventured  a 
verification  of  Jesus'  organic  view,  "I  am  the  true 
vine  and  ye  are  the  branches.  My  Father  is  the 
husbandman."  Evangelical  Churches  have  abided 
in  Him  and  He  in  them;  a  blessed  compulsion 
should  constrain  us  to  believe  this  Unity  for  the 
very  work's  sake,  for  apart  from  Him  these 
movements  could  have  done  nothing. 

Many  in  one,  our  fathers  said, 

Many  in  one,  say  we ; 
Of  differing  creeds,  of  differing  forms, 

Love  brings  us  Unity. 

From  each,  from  all,  may  life  outflow, 

To  each  and  all  flow  in  ; 
It  needs  us  all  to  swell  the  chords 

Of  Life's  triumphant  hymn. 


Christian  Unity 


8i 


"I  and  my  Heavenly  Father  are  One,"  said 
Christ,  and  as  Christ  and  the  Father  realized  their 
unity  in  evangelistic  outlook  upon  a  suffering,  sin- 
ful world,  so  the  invisible  body  of  Christ  to-day 
is  unified  in  its  desire  for  the  world's  redemption. 
It  is  a  craving  which,  in  George  Wharton  Pepper's 
fine  phrase,  is  the  "concensus  of  Christendom." 

However,  it  is  fair  in  dealing  with  the  problem 
to  estimate  the  force  of  the  accumulated  spirit 
of  divisiveness  that  broods  over  our  modern  Chris- 
tianity. Of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure,  the  prob- 
lem of  Church  Unity  is  not  one  merely  of  tem- 
perament, nor  of  willful  opposition  to  the  desires 
of  Christ,  nor  is  it  one  purely  of  ecclesiastical 
organization.  It  has  its  psychological  roots  deep 
in  the  accumulated  principles  of  our  past  individu- 
alism. Its  cure  can  only  lie  in  an  extention  of 
the  social  and  religious  consciousness  of  our  basic 
solidarity.  Eucken  has  admirably  estimated  the 
basis  of  division  in  his  "Christianity  and  the  New 
Idealism."  His  endeavor  in  "The  Churches  and 
their  Divisions,"  is  not  so  much  to  weight  the 
diverse  methods  of  labour  of  the  various  Churches 
as  to  ask,  "how  the  Churches  conceive  the  relation 
between  the  old  traditional  religion  and  the  re- 


82  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

qulrements  of  modern  life,  and  whether  their  ways 
of  handling  the  problem  give  promise  of  a  satis- 
factory solution."  The  outstanding  feature  is,  of 
course,  the  opposition  of  Catholicism  and  Protest- 
antism. Catholicism  is  a  clash  of  the  finality  of 
Medaevalism  with  modern  culture;  even  Modern- 
ism within  its  borders  has  little  chance  to  quicken 
it.  "In  Protestantism  we  must  distinguish  two 
separate  types,  the  older  and  the  newer;  the  for- 
mer expressing  the  convictions  of  the  Reforma- 
tion time ;  the  latter  resulting  from  the  contact  of 
modern  culture  with  Christianity." 

"The  old  Protestantism,"  says  Eucken,  "held 
that  our  faith  in  Divine  matters  became  firmer  in 
proportion  as  it  was  more  exclusively  self-sup- 
porting. .  .  .  And  the  integral  status  of  religion 
is  here  less  secure  than  with  Catholicism.  So  long 
as  religion  remained  as  in  ancient  days,  the  un- 
questioned ruler  of  life,  the  movement  of  culture 
along  side  of  it  could  not  in  any  way  prejudice 
its  own  development.  But  the  more  rich  and  in- 
fluential the  culture  grew,  and  the  more  it  became 
man's  chief  concern,  the  more  did  religion  threaten 
to  degenerate  into  mere  provincialism,  and  to 
rank,  in  last  resort,  as  a  thing  of  no  consequence. 


Christian  Unity 


83 


Many  of  its  defenders,  in  their  endeavor  to  se- 
cure it  against  all  the  doubt  and  confusion  which 
perplex  it  to-day,  are  falling  back  on  an  historical 
basis.  .  .  .  Historical  criticism,  however,  has 
severely  scrutinized  the  form  in  which  the  Scrip- 
tures have  come  down  to  us  and  has  shaken  its 
authority.  .  .  .  We  have  to  determine  afresh 
for  ourselves  the  true  meaning  of  history,  and 
we  can  do  this  only  from  the  standpoint  of  life 
as  a  whole. 

The  Newer  Protestantism  is  a  frank  effort  at 
adaptation  to  the  demands  of  Science  and  Culture. 
"In  truth,"  continues  Eucken,  "the  religious  prob- 
lem has  now  passed  far  beyond  the  control  of  any 
ecclesiastical  or  sectarian  body;  over  and  outside 
the  existing  churches,  and  through  them  and  be- 
yond, it  has  become  a  concern  of  the  whole  human 
race.  ...  In  particular,  it  should  be  clearly 
understood  that  when  we  speak  of  the  age's  aspir- 
ation after  a  revived  religion,  we  do  not  mean 
by  this  a  simple  return  to  the  ancient  forms  of 
Christian  faith,  nor  have  we  in  mind  any  mitigated 
orthodoxy,  any  so-called  liberalized  interpreta- 
tion of  these  ancient  forms.  What  the  age  must 
win  for  itself  is  an  essentially  new  form  of  Chris- 


84  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

tianity  answering  to  that  phase  of  the  Spiritual 
life  to  which  the  world's  historical  development 
has  led  us." 

And  now  the  problem,  at  least  for  our  genera- 
tion, assumes  this  form :  How,  underneath  these 
essential  diversities,  may  we  find  a  basis  inclusive 
of  all!  A  common  denominator  for  the  various 
numerators  must  be  secured  in  a  realization  of  the 
supremacy  of  love  over  knowledge,  of  evangelism 
over  method  and  of  cooperation  over  self-preach- 
ment. Both  Progressive  and  Conservative  par- 
ties to  the  controversy  must  realize  that  "Whether 
there  be  prophecies"  of  Unity,  or  "whether  there 
be  knowledge,"  all  but  the  abiding  things,  "faith, 
hope,  charity,"  shall  be  done  away.  Where  shall 
we  find  the  tramping-ground,  the  "basis  inclusive 
of  all,"  the  rock  foundation  deep  and  abiding 
enough  to  support  the  entire  superstructure  of 
Christendom?  Perhaps  we  shall  find  our  first 
refuge  from  the  cold  in  the  13th  of  Corinthians. 

More  and  more  the  present-day  Gospel  finds  its 
announcement  in  terms  of  social  love.  "If  thy 
heart  be  as  my  heart,  give  me  thy  hand,"  Le- 
galism is  the  warp  upon  which  the  sects  weave 
with  woof  of  bias  a  coat  that  no  arrows  of  love 


Christian  Unity 


85 


or  expediency  can  pierce.  Legalism  of  Scriptural 
interpretation  has  been  especially  pregnant  with 
discord.  But  beneath  these  numerators  of  our  in- 
dividual differences  of  Methodist,  Baptist,  Pres- 
byterian, Episcopalian,  or  what-not,  we  find  the 
greatest  common  denominator,  the  love  of  Christ, 
a  love  that  beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things.  An  English 
epigrammatist  has  reflected  that  "religion  has  had 
to  provide  that  longest  and  strongest  telescope,  the 
telescope  through  which  we  could  see  the  star  upon 
which  we  dwelt."  To  discern  the  essential  nature 
of  our  own  unity  the  Churches  must  resort  to  that 
religious  telescope  with  the  well-focused  lens  of 
love,  the  13th  of  Corinthians. 

The  night  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

The  day  but  one; 
Yet  the  light  of  a  bright  world  dies 

With  the  dying  sun. 

The  mind  has  a  thousand  eyes, 

The  heart  but  one; 
Yet  the  h'ght  of  a  whole  life  dies 

When  love  is  done,  when  love  is  done. 

A  recent  criticism  from  Chesterton  upon 
Thomas  Carlyle  is  pregnant  to  suggest  the  possible 


86  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

solidarity  of  Christ's  Church :  "A  man  is  almost 
always  wrong  when  he  sets  out  to  prove  the  un- 
reality and  uselessness  of  anything;  he  is  almost 
always  right  when  he  sets  out  to  prove  the  reality 
and  value  of  anything.  I  have  a  different  and 
much  more  genuine  right  to  say  that  bull's  eyes  are 
nice  than  to  say  that  licorice  is  nasty;  I  have  found 
the  meaning  of  the  first  and  not  the  second.  If  a 
man  goes  on  a  tearing  hunt  after  shams  it  is 
probable  that  he  will  find  nothing  real.  He  is 
tearing  off  the  branches  to  find  the  tree."  An 
unyielding  and  unlovely  spirit  will  be  a  subsidy  of 
heresy  against  all  arguments  for  a  consciousness 
of  unity.  Without  love  truth  cannot  hold  com- 
munion in  our  midst;  with  love  the  Churches  shall 
have  the  power  of  cohesion  in  the  differences  com- 
mon to  our  human  lot. 

Again  evangelical  churches  are  to-day  announc- 
ing the  gospel  of  incorporation  of  a  Life,  rather 
than  assent  to  creed,  ascription  to  ritual,  or  mem- 
bership in  a  visible  organization.  Past  preach- 
ments may  have  created  differences  of  creed  as  to 
miracles  and  prophesies;  we  have  come  to  see  that 
we  should  have  "told  them  to  no  man."  Pulpits 
have  articulated  dogmas  of  atonement,  divinity 


Christian  Unity 


87 


and  inspiration;  the  larger  truth  declares  that 
faith,  hope,  and  charity  are  the  things  that  abide. 
Though  we  give  our  bodies  to  be  burned  for  the 
dogmas  and  have  not  charity  it  shall  profit  us 
nothing.  Disputes  have  been  engendered  as  to 
ordinances  and  their  manner  of  observance,  of 
membership  in  some  form  of  organization  of  the 
visible  Church.  "The  Kingdom  of  God  is  not 
such  meat  and  drink";  it  is  within  us,  righteous- 
ness, joy,  and  peace  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  Sects 
that  exist  by  the  sword  of  dogmatic  controversy 
shall  perish  thereby,  for  Christianity  constrains 
us  with  a  blessed  compulsion  to  fellowship  in  a 
life.  Only  in  so  far  forth  as  ritual  and  creed 
pragmatically  minister  to  this  fellowship,  to  lead 
the  soul  to  Christ,  are  they  valuable.  The  con- 
science of  all  Christendom  is  flaming  and  articulat- 
ing itself  with  irresistible  persuasion  on  this  point 
to-day.    And  it  shall  not  know  defeat. 

The  matter  of  evangelism,  of  missions,  the 
mighty  task  of  the  Church  for  which  our  Lord 
died,  here  is  a  platform  upon  which  all  can  stand. 
Is  there  any  other  basis  of  unity  needed  than  these 
three:  the  Love  of  God  in  Christ  overflowing  into 
all  souls,  the  Incorporation  of  Jesus  Christ's  char- 


88  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

acter  into  our  conduct  (which  Arnold  called  three- 
fourths  of  life),  the  Missionary  Evangelism  of 
Christ  upon  the  World!  Surely  if  any  man  build 
on  any  other  foundation  than  the  simplicity  and  all- 
sufficiency  of  Christ,  the  "day"  shall  declare  it. 

The  hopeful  world  has  recently  become  so  filled 
with  admiration  for  the  strategical  genius  of  Gen- 
eral Foch  and  his  Staff  that  it  feels  an  obligation 
devolving  upon  them  to  explain  the  military  tac- 
tics by  which  the  Allies  won  at  Armageddon,  The 
world  is  not  satisfied  with  the  theories  of  tyros 
and  neophites  who  talk  from  self-derived  knowl- 
edge; it  wants  a  final  word  from  those  who  have 
learned  at  the  expense  of  shell-torn  experience. 
Among  all  the  sinuosities  of  the  military  struggle 
in  the  World  Armageddon,  no  chapter  can  com- 
mand more  interest  than  one  on  "Positional  War- 
fare." After  the  long  ribbon  of  trenches  had 
unfolded  from  Switzerland  to  the  North  Sea  in 
19 14  the  contest  became  one  for  "positions." 
Certain  spots,  as  Verdun  or  Vimy  Ridge,  were 
strategic  and  were  called  "centres  of  resistance." 
If  several  centres  of  resistance  fell  to  the  enemy 
it  might  mean  the  necessary  retirement  of  the 
entire  line.    It  was  at  this  gigantic  game  of  mil- 


Christian  Unity 


89 


itary  chess,  this  war  of  positions,  that  Foch  finally 
won  for  Democracy. 

The  Church  of  Christ  during  the  Great  War 
has  also  realized  something  of  the  "war  for  posi- 
tions." It  has  encountered  many  centres  of  re- 
sistance, gone  over  the  top  gloriously  for  Christ, 
and  on  looking  into  the  mirror  now  finds  itself 
with  new  aspect  and  new  attitude.  A  modern 
poet  recently  characterised  France  as  the  greatest 
theological  class-room  in  the  world.  The  men 
at  the  front  were  face  to  face  with  Reality  and 
the  Church  had  to  supply  a  Christ  as  vivid  and  real 
as  wounds  and  suffering  and  death.  Christ  was 
found  the  only  rallying-point  in  an  otherwise  dis- 
integrating world.  The  exigencies  of  the  battle- 
front  minimized  or  blotted  out  all  sectarian  dif- 
ferences. Mr.  Tiplady's  The  Cross  at  the  Front, 
full  of  idealism  and  reality,  speaking  poignant  ex- 
perience in  bold  language,  does  not  hesitate  to 
point  out  the  blunders  and  sins  of  the  Church  in 
these  faith-shaking  times.  But  above  the  din 
of  battle  his  message  sounds  clear  and  bell-like  that 
Christ  lives,  that  Christ  is  real,  that  Christ  tri- 
umphs. The  spirit  of  Christ's  great  adventure 
banished  from  the  battle  front  the  severities  and 


90  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

angularities  of  the  divided  Church  and  Christ  was 
All  in  All. 

An  ancient  Swiss  legend  of  rare  charm  and 
beauty  clusters  about  the  wonderful  Lake  of 
Geneva,  It  is  related  that  a  simple  and  rustic 
peasant  who  lived  in  the  valley  of  Berne  not  far 
from  Lake  Geneva,  once  decided  that  he  wanted 
to  see  some  of  the  world,  and  after  for  a  long 
while  laying  his  plans,  he  bade  his  friends  and 
relatives  an  impressive  farewell  and  set  out. 
Armed  only  with  his  mountain  staff  he  climbed 
the  rough  path  leading  to  one  of  the  lofty  peaks 
that  look  over  Lake  Geneva.  Tramping  sturdily 
on,  he  soon  came  to  the  boundary  line  that  sep- 
arated his  own  Canton  from  that  of  Vaud.  Never 
before  had  this  simple  peasant  ventured  so  far 
from  home  and  everything  seemed  so  strange  that 
he  kept  looking  around  and  behind  and  before 
him,  bewildered  and  marvelling  at  the  view  which 
grew  more  and  more  extended  with  every  step. 
It  was  one  of  those  amazing  bright  Swiss  days 
when  in  the  thin  atmosphere  every  object  Is  per- 
ceptible for  miles  around.  There  was  much  to 
see  and,  as  the  poor  peasant  had  never  traveled 


Christian  Unity 


91 


before,  he  was  quite  unprepared  for  the  sight 
which  greeted  his  eyes  when  he  reached  the  top 
of  the  mountain  pass.  There  in  the  glorious 
morning  sunlight  the  peasant  stood  with  open-eyed 
wonderment  and  gazed  at  Lake  Geneva  and,  be- 
yond, France  and  the  Alps  of  Italy.  And  as  for 
Lake  Geneva  itself,  its  waters  were  of  the  exact 
hue  of  the  sky  overhead.  After  staring  at  the 
entrancing  view  for  some  time,  the  sturdy  rustic 
heaved  a  great  sigh,  turned  slowly  on  his  hobnailed 
heels  and  wended  his  way  slowly  back  home  again 
along  the  very  path  which  he  had  just  trod.  When 
he  reached  his  native  village  the  people  all  crowded 
around  him  asking  why  he  had  come  back  so  soon 
and  what  had  induced  him  to  give  up  his  long- 
cherished  plan  to  see  the  world  on  the  other  side 
of  the  mountain.  The  peasant,  whose  intellect 
was  dull  with  long  toil,  listened  stolidly  to  their 
questions,  scratched  his  curly  head  and  slowly  ex- 
plained that  on  reaching  the  top  of  the  pass  he 
had  discovered  it  would  be  useless  and  unsafe  to 
venture  further — for  a  big  piece  of  the  sky  had 
dropped  down  into  the  valley  on  the  other  side  of 
the  mountain  1 


92  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

Has  it  been  necessary  for  the  Church  to  go  on 
a  long  journey,  over  rough  roads  of  militarism  to 
find  brotherhood  in  Christ  on  a  foreign  soil?  At 
the  World's  Armageddon  a  great  piece  of  the 
sky  dropped  down,  Heaven  poured  out  its  pente- 
cost  of  spiritual  waters  to  shake  the  thirst  of 
those  who  battled  at  the  crisis  of  the  Universe. 
The  army  will  return  with  its  wonderful  tidings 
of  Unity.  On  the  other  side  of  the  mountain  they 
saw  a  huge  piece  of  the  Heavens  drop  into  the 
valley  below;  it  was  the  realization  that  in  Life 
and  in  Death  Jesus  Christ  makes  us  One  I 

"O  God  of  Peace,  Who  through  Thy  Son,  Jesus 
Christ,  didst  send  forth  One  Faith  for  the  salva- 
tion of  mankind;  send  Thy  grace  and  heavenly 
blessing  upon  all  Christian  people  who  are  striving 
to  draw  nearer  to  Thee,  and  to  each  other,  in  the 
Unity  of  the  Spirit  and  in  the  bond  of  peace.  Give 
us  penitence  for  our  divisions,  wisdom  to  know 
Thy  truth,  courage  to  do  Thy  will,  love  which 
shall  break  down  the  barriers  of  pride  and  preju- 
dice, and  unswerving  loyalty  to  Thy  Holy  Name. 
Suffer  us  not  to  shrink  from  any  endeavor,  which 
is  in  accordance  with  Thy  will,  for  the  peace  and 
unity  of  Thy  Church.    Give  us  boldness  to  seek 


Christian  Unity 


93 


only  Thy  glory  and  the  advancement  of  Thy  King- 
dom. Unite  us  all  in  Thee  as  Thou,  O  Father, 
with  Thy  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  art  One  God,  world 
without  end.  Amen." 


PART  IV 

CHRISTIAN  UNION 


"Speaking  truth  in  love,  grow  up  in  all  things 
into  Him  who  is  the  head,  even  Christ,  from 
whom  all  the  body,  fitly  framed  and  knit  together 
through  that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  accord- 
ing to  the  working  in  due  measure  of  each  several 
part,  maketh  the  increase  of  the  body  unto  the 
building  up  of  itself  in  love."  Paul,  Ephesians, 
4:15-16. 

"Put  on  therefore  as  God's  elect,  holy  and  be- 
loved, a  heart  of  compassion,  kindness,  lowliness, 
meekness,  forbearing  one  another  and  forgiving 
one  another  even  as  Christ  forgave  you.  And 
above  all  things  put  on  love  which  is  the  bond 
of  perfectness.  And  let  the  peace  of  Christ  rule 
in  your  hearts  to  which  ye  were  called  in  one 
body."   Paul,  Colossians,  ^:  12-15. 


CHRISTIAN  UNION 


IT  is  doubtless  obvious  to  anyone  who  follows 
the  progress  of  the  war  that  the  Church  may 
do  well  to  learn  some  vital  lessons  from  the  dis- 
asters and  successes  of  military  science.  As  Paul 
reverted  to  military  science  for  his  analogies  on 
"the  Captain  of  our  salvation,"  and  "put  on  the 
full  armour  of  God,"  so  the  Churches  must  to-day 
conserve  the  lessons  taught  by  the  master  military 
brains  of  the  world.  One  of  the  mightiest  of  all 
these  hard-taught  lessons  is  the  power  of  union  of 
organization  over  isolated  and  divided  effort. 
Writing  to  Robespierre  in  1794  Napoleon  set 
forth  the  conception  of  modern  warfare  when  he 
said,  "The  management  of  war  requires  concen- 
tration of  fire  on  a  single  point.  Attacks  must 
never  be  scattered  but  concentrated  and  with  unity 
of  command  do  one  thing  and  do  it  hard." 
Through  his  great  wars  Napoleon  fought  over- 
whelming odds  in  coalitions  and  alliances  and  with 

world-smashing  union  of  organization  he  worsted 

97 


98  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  walloped  numerically  superior  enemies.  At 
Austerlitz  Napoleon  gave  superior  forces  the 
wormwood  and  gall  of  defeat  and  as  late  as  his 
Marne  campaign  of  18 14  with  an  army  reduced  to 
a  handful  he  triumphed  over  vast  numbers  through 
his  unmatched  union  of  organization.  It  was  not 
until  18 15  at  Waterloo  that  Wellington  and 
Blutcher  learned  to  act  together  with  coherence, 
and  when  they  did  Napoleon  was  undone.  Turn- 
ing to  our  own  Civil  War,  one  sees  instantly  that 
until  Grant  was  made  commander-in-chief,  the 
Northern  efforts  were  merely  a  series  of  discon- 
nected campaigns.  The  North  had  superior  num- 
bers, but  Lee  with  perfectly  united  organization 
transferred  troops  rapidly  from  Tennesee  to  Vir- 
ginia and  back  again.  It  was  only  after  the  battle 
of  Chattanooga  that  the  war  on  the  Northern  side 
progressed  as  a  cohesive,  centralized  effort;  and 
once  that  union  of  effort  in  the  North  came,  the 
collapse  of  the  South  was  inevitable.  Now  it  has 
been  known  for  some  years  past  that  Germany  was 
a  close  student  of  this  Napoleon-Grant  science  of 
warfare.  It  must  be  confessed  by  the  Allies  that 
in  the  early  days  of  the  war  Germany,  Austria, 
Turkey,  Bulgaria,  found  a  concerted  action  that 


Christian  Union 


99 


worked  deadly  consequences  to  the  haphazard  co- 
operation of  the  Allies.  The  Allies  with  greater 
devotion  and  resources  have  not  sooner  won  the 
victory  because  we  gave  a  series  of  side-shows. 
But  once  the  Allies  learned  that  lesson  of  union, 
once  they  pooled  their  drives  and  subordinated  all 
to  a  united  programme,  victory  came.  And  under 
this  concert  of  action  the  clock  of  victory  for  the 
Allies  was  moved  ahead  with  amazing  rapidity. 
Foch  repeated  Napoleon  and  Grant. 

Jesus  and  Paul  with  a  spiritual-military  genius 
realized  from  the  first  the  tremendous  value  of 
perfect  union  in  the  Church  of  believers.  "How 
beautiful  it  is,"  said  the  Psalmist,  "for  brethren 
to  dwell  together  in  unity."  If  the  Psalmist 
found  it  beautiful  then  Jesus  and  Paul  found  it 
abtolutely  essential  if  the  company  of  the  redeemed 
was  to  make  any  impression  upon  the  world.  Jesus 
knew  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 
stand.  After  the  departure  of  the  visible  Jesus, 
the  spirit  of  Christ  in  Paul  pleaded  and  took  up 
cudgels  for  the  mighty  cause  of  Union.  Paul  la- 
mented to  the  Corinthians  that  there  were  divi- 
sions among  them.  Paul's  beautiful  argument  in 
the  1 2th.  of  I  Corinthians  is  matchless  in  its  logic 


100  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

and  irresistible  in  the  aptness  of  its  appeal.  The 
Church  is  presented  as  a  body.  As  Professor 
Hocking  says,  "The  sum  is  greater  than  all  its 
parts  and  the  body  is  greater  than  all  its  members 
in  the  science  of  biology."  So  the  Church,  pleads 
Paul,  is  body  of  Christ,  and  Christ  is  greater  than 
all.  And  in  the  4th.  of  Ephesians  Paul's  plea  for 
union  of  function  in  the  body  is  the  same  sweet 
logic;  "that  ye  may  grow  up  in  all  things  to  Christ, 
from  whom  all  the  body  fitly  framed  together 
through  that  which  every  joint  supplieth,  according 
to  the  working  in  due  measure  of  each  several  part, 
maketh  the  increase  of  the  body  unto  the  building 
up  of  itself  in  love."  This  body  of  Christ,  the 
Church,  is  yet  immature  and  must  grow  in  wisdom, 
stature,  and  favor  with  God  and  man,  "till  we  all 
attain  unto  the  unity  of  faith,  and  the  knowledge 
of  the  Son  of  God,  unto  a  full-grown  man,  unto 
the  measure  of  the  stature  of  the  fullness  of 
Christ."  "No  law  can  be  made,"  says  Hobbes  in 
his  Leviathan,  "until  they  have  agreed  upon  the 
Person  that  shall  make  it."  Paul  applies  this  rule 
rigidly  to  the  Church.  Our  lawgiver  for  union  is 
Love  and  Love  as  personalized  by  Christ.  The 
least  that  Paul  can  possibly  mean  by  the  12th.  of 


Christian  Union 


lOI 


I  Corinthians  and  the  4th.  of  Ephesians,  is  that 
love  of  Christ  will  unionize  and  federate  and 
harmonize  all  the  diverse  objects  and  aims  of 
Christ's  Church. 

The  effort  and  object  of  the  Church  of  Christ  in 
all  the  stages  of  its  history  has  been  to  attain  and 
to  maintain  the  union  of  forces  which  Jesus  prayed 
for  and  left  with  His  Disciples.  "I  am  the  Good 
Shepherd,"  said  our  Lord,  "and  I  know  my  sheep. 
Other  sheep  have  I  which  are  not  of  this  fold; 
them  also  I  must  bring.  And  they  shall  hear  my 
voice  and  there  shall  be  one  flock  and  one  Shep- 
herd." The  Christians  of  the  Apostolic  Age  and 
of  the  period  immediately  succeeding  enjoyed  per- 
fect union  of  spiritual  effort  in  the  bond  of  peace; 
with  them  there  was  one  Lord  Christ,  one  Faith 
in  His  redemptive  power,  one  Baptism  of  His 
Holy  Spirit.  True,  there  were  differences  among 
the  Apostolic  Churches  and  Churchmen  that  elic- 
ited the  reprimands  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  but  these 
differences  never  assumed  such  serious  dimensions 
as  to  develop  into  organic  separations.  The  cruel 
conditions  of  that  early  Roman  world  drove  the 
followers  of  Jesus  into  union  as  a  band  of  robbers 
drives  pilgrims  into  common  defense.    The  dis- 


102  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

ciples  were  few  in  numbers,  poor  in  worldly  goods, 
ostracized  by  the  world,  persecuted  unrelentingly, 
and  pressed  into  union  by  hard,  iron  necessity. 

It  is  always  stimulating  to  look  back  to  that 
First  Christian  Century  when  Christ  began  to 
streak  the  darkness  with  light.  The  Romans  with 
their  lust  for  world  empire  held  sway  from  the 
Euphrates  to  the  Atlantic,  from  the  Danube  to  the 
African  Deserts.  Everywhere  morality  was  un- 
supported and  fortune  tellers  posed  as  the  best  in- 
terpreters of  life.  There  was  a  general  decay  of 
faith  and  a  paralysis  of  hope,  a  deep  sorrow  with- 
out consolation,  a  great  hush  or  pause  or  coma. 
Into  that  great  hush  came  a  new  order  of  phe- 
nomena, a  disturbance  in  the  moral  world.  By  the 
end  of  the  Apostolic  era  the  gospel  of  Christ  had 
found  root  in  nearly  all  the  great  cities  and  cen- 
tres of  population.  The  magnificent  Roman  roads 
helped  to  radiate  the  message  throughout  the  Em- 
pire. By  the  conclusion  of  the  First  Century 
Christianity  had  skirted  all  the  shores  of  the  Medi- 
terranean; it  had  gone  up  the  Nile  into  Egypt;  it 
had  crossed  the  Euphrates  into  the  Parthian  Em- 
pire; it  had  entered  Gaul  and  planted  churches  in 
Lyons  and  Vienna.    Often  these  churches  were 


Christian  Union 


103 


sundered  by  hundred  of  miles  and  diverse  lan- 
guages and  cultures,  but  they  were  united  In  the 
bond  of  perfect  brotherhood  in  Christ.  Through 
the  darkness  of  that  First  Century  these  little 
churches  dotted  paganism  like  spangles  of  gold 
and  silver.  It  was  very  much  as  geologists  say 
Europe  rose  from  the  deep,  at  first  little  islands 
in  the  wilderness  of  waters,  then  the  islands  grew 
toward  each  other  into  a  vast  continent  of  unity. 
So  these  little  churches  enlarged  their  circles  of 
power  giving  Christ  and  immortality  to  the  dark 
world. 

Next  to  the  spiritual  and  moral  transcendence 
of  their  message  and  life,  the  most  wonderful 
explanation  of  the  power  of  that  early  Church  lay 
in  its  union  of  effort.  Where  you  have  two  agree- 
ing as  touching  a  matter  it  is  accomplished !  They 
knew  not  our  Twentieth  Century  divisions  I 

But  it  is  now  common  historical  knowledge  that 
several  centuries  after  the  departure  of  the  Apos- 
tles the  primitive  Church  of  the  Disciples  lost  its 
simplicity  and  became  identified  with  the  Roman 
Empire.  Through  the  ascendancy  of  men  of 
power  in  the  Bishopric  of  Rome  the  Church  en- 
tered upon  an  era  of  enforced  uniformity  so  rigid 


104  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

in  type  and  so  authorltively  maintained  that  it 
was  type  and  prototype  of  the  uniformity  of  the 
Empire  of  Rome  itself.  In  place  of  httle  groups 
of  disciples  worshiping  in  one  another's  homes  as 
in  the  Apostolic  days  the  Church  now  became  a 
religious  absolutism  of  utmost  power  and  pomp. 
And  then  for  seven  hundred  years  the  orthodox 
Catholic  Church  professed  a  union  centering  in 
an  historically  derived  priesthood  and  ministry  and 
exhibiting  a  perfect  agreement  in  the  use  of  the 
sacraments. 

On  the  1 6th.  of  July,  1054,  division  and  schism 
began.  The  year  1054  marks  the  separation  of 
the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  into  Greek 
Catholic  and  Roman  Catholic.  Because  of  a  re- 
puted theological  difference  the  Pope  published  in 
the  Cathedral  of  St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople  a 
writ  of  excommunication  and  the  "after  the  de- 
luge" was  on.  The  next  great  organic  disunion 
or  disunions  that  took  place  were  those  of  the 
1 6th,  Century  and  following.  Abuses  of  both 
morals  and  ecclesiastic  powers  had  crept  into  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  Reformation 
under  Luther  and  Calvin  and  Huss  broke  the 
union  of  Western  Christendom,  such  union  as  it 


Christian  Union 


105 


was.  The  new-found  Protesting  liberty  began  to 
manifest  itself  in  many  ways,  some  good  and 
others  far  from  ideal.  And  yet  despite  the  break- 
age charges  these  reformers  levied  against  Chris- 
tendom, despite  the  resultant  confusion  to  Prot- 
testantism  since,  surely  the  divisions  of  Christen- 
dom are  preferable  to  the  one-time  enforced  uni- 
formity of  the  Roman  Catholic  order.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  prove  this. 

But  while  a  tolerant  God  winked  at  men's  ig- 
norant divisions  in  time  past,  it  is  now  high  time 
for  the  Church  to  emerge  from  the  age  of  con- 
troversy. "The  night  is  far  spent  and  the  day 
is  at  hand."  Under  the  shadow  of  the  Cross 
Jesus  prayed  for  the  oneness  of  His  believers,  and 
to-day  upon  the  world  war  the  Christ  has  been 
crucified  afresh  and  put  to  an  open  shame.  The 
deep  consciousness  rests  upon  the  Church  to-day 
that  however  she  may  have  fulfilled  the  desire  of 
her  Lord  in  other  respects,  she  has  not  fulfilled  His 
agonizing  prayer  for  union.  Look  into  the  re- 
ports of  the  U.  S.  Census  Bureau  at  the  unenvi- 
able record  of  the  more  than  one  hundred  and  sixty 
denominations  in  our  land!  Many  of  the  smaller 
denominations  are  so  small  and  claim  such  idio- 


io6  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

syncracies  that  they  are  "sects  become  insects." 
As  Bishop  Anderson  has  it,  "Our  many  church 
labels  are  proving  libels  against  Christianity  and 
many  religions  are  not  increasing  religion."  Some 
of  the  larger  denominations  are  divided  beyond 
all  justification  I  We  find  twelve  kinds  of  Pres- 
byterians, fifteen  kinds  of  Baptists,  sixteen  kinds 
of  Methodists,  twenty-one  kinds  of  Lutherans. 
"The  climax  of  denominationalism  is  reached  by 
one  sect  further  subdivided  by  perferances  for 
hooks  and  eyes  instead  of  buttons  in  the  attach- 
ment of  clothing.  They  proudly  hope  to  meet  in 
Heaven  though  they  will  not  unite  on  earth."  To 
attribute  such  divisions  to  providential  guidance 
is  to  approach  perilously  close  to  blasphemy. 

An  investigation  of  districts  in  East  or  West 
discloses  the  depressing  facts  of  over-churching. 
Towns  of  three  hundred  in  population  may  dis- 
play five  or  six  different  churches  with  no  resident 
preacher  for  any  one  of  them.  Classical  illustra- 
tions from  the  length  and  breadth  of  our  land 
could  be  cited  to  show  the  sinful  wastefulness  of 
our  modern  Church  politics.  If  such  Churches 
could  find  grace  enough  to  unite  they  might  form 
a  congregation  of  sufficient  strength  to  command 


Christian  Union  107 

the  regard  of  the  town  or  city  they  seek  to  bless. 
In  almost  every  college  of  our  land  the  Senior 
Class  has  an  event  called  "burying  the  hatchet." 
On  some  dark  night  toward  the  end  of  the  college 
year  the  class  war  of  four  years'  duration  is  laid 
aside  and  the  graduating  class  solemnly  buries  a 
hatchet  in  the  woods  as  a  symbol  of  the  end  of 
all  differences.    The  Church  may  yet  learn. 

It  is  said  by  travelers  that  as  one  toils  up 
Mount  Hood  in  the  Cascade  Range,  he  crosses  in 
the  gray  dawn  of  the  morning  a  small  river  valley. 
The  traveler  is  able  to  accomplish  the  passage  dry- 
foot.  But  returning  at  eventide  he  finds  the  dry 
river  bed  filled  with  a  rushing  torrent  of  water. 
What  has  effected  the  change  ?  All  during  the  day 
the  sun  with  its  warm  rays  has  softened  the  snows 
and  sent  floods  of  water  gushing  and  rushing  down 
the  mountain  side.  In  such  manner  it  is  impera- 
tive that  the  warm  Sun  of  Righeousness  that  arises 
with  healing  in  His  wings  must  melt  up  our  cold 
sectarianisms  and  send  warm  streams  of  love  to 
service  in  the  plains  below.  It  would  be  a  river 
that  would  make  glad  the  City  of  God. 

Now  at  last  there  is  emerging  a  deepening  sense 
of  the  sinful  waste  of  overchurching  and  compcti- 


io8  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

tion  with  consequent  neglect  of  needy  fields.  Such 
men  as  Chief  Justice  Brewer  aver  that  "Denomina- 
tions exist,  will  exist,  ought  to  exist.  Their  exist- 
ence is  in  no  manner  inconsistent  with  the  spirit  of 
unity  which  should  animate  all."  Arley  B.  Shaw 
declares  that  "a  wholesome  competition  developes 
charity  and  efficiency."  While  these  assertions  are 
true,  it  needs  no  critical  eye  to  perceive  that  there 
have  been  many  vicious  forms  of  competition.  A 
practical  missionary  writes,  "If  the  Churches  could 
hear  the  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth  about 
home  missions,  such  a  demand  for  union  would 
come  from  all  quarters  as  would  amount  to  a  revo- 
lution. .  .  .  When  the  youngest  of  our  Western 
States  are  more  heavily  overchurched  than  New 
England,  we  may  be  sure  that  the  indulgence  of 
our  denomintional  differences  is  the  most  exagger- 
ated and  shameful  of  our  modern  luxuries."  But 
the  sense  of  our  deeper  unity  is  growing — thank 
God! — through  his  maelstrom  of  the  present 
world-shaking  conflict. 

Mr.  Chesterton  in  "Heretics"  has  admirable 
insight  into  the  situation.  "The  modern  world," 
he  says,  "is  not  evil;  in  some  ways  the  modern 
world  is  far  too  good.    It  is  full  of  wild  and 


Christian  Union  109 

wasted  virtues.  When  a  religious  scheme  is  shat- 
tered, it  is  not  merely  the  vices  that  are  let  loose. 
The  vices  are  indeed  let  loose  and  they  wander 
and  do  damage.  But  the  virtues  are  let  loose  also 
and  the  virtues  wander  more  wildly."  We  need 
an  organization  of  this  wandering  and  uncoordi- 
nated good-will.  In  the  primative  Church  it  was 
their  coordination  that  gave  them  strength;  they 
were  a  state  within  a  state. 

For  the  strength  of  the  pack  is  the  wolf, 
And  the  strength  of  the  wolf  is  the  pack. 

The  world  is  critical  of  our  dislocated  Chris- 
tianity. "It  sees  fences  where  there  should  be 
an  open  field,  hedges  where  there  should  be  noth- 
ing but  green  grass,  sentries  walking  to  and  fro 
on  lines  that  ought  never  to  have  been  drawn." 
We  need  concerted  action  over-reaching  these 
boundaries.  If  we  investigate  the  life  of  the  later 
Roman  Empire,  we  can  find  the  same  condition 
of  disorganized  good-will.  Multimillionaires  gave 
parks  and  theatres  and  aqueducts  and  received 
their  monuments  as  to-day.  But  it  is  not  by  senti- 
mental but  by  organized  philanthrophy  that  the 
world  is  to  be  lifted  to  Christ. 


no  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

Rev.  Mr.  Huntington  ventures  that  if  our  Chris- 
tianity costs  us  twenty  times  as  much — "and  it 
would  do  so  were  we  in  dead  earnest" — we  should 
be  only  the  better  men  and  women  for  the  outlay. 
However  that  may  be,  a  sowing  of  seed  that  is 
often  a  "scattering  abroad"  and  brings  only  two- 
or  five-fold  instead  of  some  sixty,  or  an  hun- 
dred, is  morally  depressing.  The  passion  of  the 
Churches,  the  passion  of  Christ  Himself,  cries  for 
a  deeper  consciousness  of  our  unity  of  love  and 
of  hope  and  of  faith.  Its  fulfilment  will  come  as 
surely  as  Christ's  prayer  for  unity  was  not  in 
vain.  The  burden  of  our  Lord's  prayer  to  God 
shall  not  be  too  heavy  for  us  to  carry. 

The  great  diversification  of  interests  and  special- 
ization of  industry  in  the  past  century  have  created 
an  individualism  that  has  not  yet  realized  its 
part  and  parcel  in  the  larger  social  solidarity  of 
our  national  and  international  life.  The  centrif- 
ugal aspects  of  our  mental  and  social  and  Church 
relations  have  proved  far  stronger  than  the  cen- 
tripetal; and  our  souls  have  been  torn  greviously. 
C.  P.  Cranch,  in  his  subtle  poetry,  "Gnosis," 
makes  frank  avowal  of  this  atomic  creed;  his  open 


Christian  Union 


III 


statement  of  individualism  and  resignation  to  it  is 
a  wound  in  our  social  side : 

We  are  spirits  clad  in  veils, 

Man  by  man  was  never  seen; 
All  our  deep  communing  fails 

To  remove  the  shadowy  screen. 
Heart  to  heart  was  never  known ; 

Mind  with  mind  did  never  meet; 
We  are  columns  left  alone 

Of  a  temple  once  complete. 

Warner  Fite,  in  his  "Individualism"  has  tried 
to  comfort  our  hearts  with  a  small  family  oasis  in 
the  midst  of  this  individualistic  desert  by  present- 
ing individuality  as  a  consistency  with  two  aspects, 
"mechanical  and  conscious."  His  individualism 
does  but  permit  a  slight  "interpenetration  of 
selves."  Alas  I  we  lose  our  lives  without  socially 
regaining  them  I  But  the  new  sense  of  social 
solidarity,  the  "social  gospel'  at  work  like  leaven 
in  the  economic  and  moral  lump  is  bursting  the 
containing  fetters  of  this  laissez-faire  individual- 
ism and  there  is  hope. 

Pope's  great  word,  "For  forms  of  government 
let  fools  contest,  whatever  is  best  administered  is 
best,"  is  now  winning  a  tardy  place  in  Christian 


112  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

counsels  as  well  as  in  democratic  commonwealths. 
Note  how  magnificently  Christian  Union  is  under 
way!  Note  first  of  all  the  progress  of  union  in 
the  interdenominational  missionary  effort  I  It  is 
a  significant  fact  that  the  foreign  missionary  plat- 
form is  thus  far  the  outstanding  one  upon  which 
all  evangelical  bodies  have  been  able  to  unite. 
Missionary  workers  must  be  devoutly  thankful  for 
this  and  solemnized  by  the  responsibility  it  im- 
poses. As  in  the  early  Apostolic  days  the  Church 
threatened  to  split  over  the  Gentile  question  but 
was  saved  through  the  missionary  spirit,  so  the 
Church  to-day  can  work  out  its  own  salvation  with 
fear  and  trembling  through  the  God-given,  out- 
ward-looking channel  of  missions.  The  future 
historian  of  the  Church  will  surely  attach  great 
value  to  the  year  1854  as  the  date  of  the  first 
interdenominational  conference  of  missionary  so- 
cieties. It  was  held  in  New  York  in  May  of  1854. 
Another  great  conference  met  in  London  in  Octo- 
ber of  the  same  year.  A  third  was  held  in  Liver-, 
pool  in  i860,  and  a  fourth  in  1878,  with  thirty- 
four  communions  blending  their  spirits  and  coun- 
sels for  the  work  of  the  Kingdom.  Again,  in 
1888  the  Centenary  of  Christian  Missions  chal- 


Christian  Union 


113 


lenged  the  attention  of  the  world.  Fifteen  hun- 
dred missionary  representatives  were  present  from 
every  quarter  of  the  globe  representing  one  hun- 
dred and  forty  missionary  societies.  So  the  idea 
of  united  evangelization  of  the  world  was  fairly 
launched  and  in  April,  1900,  the  memorable  Ecu- 
menical Missionary  Conference  convened  in  New 
York  City.  Almost  every  religious  communion 
of  the  globe  was  represented.  Ex-President  Har- 
rison who  presided  at  the  sessions  declared  that 
in  all  his  public  life  he  had  never  known  a  political 
convention  which  could  maintain  such  an  interest 
for  a  period  of  ten  days  1 

The  demand  for  union  and  cooperation  in  for- 
eign missionary  work  grew  rapidly  and  in  June, 
19 10,  reached  a  high-water  mark  in  the  World 
Missionary  Conference  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland. 
Members  of  communions  that  had  previously  held 
aloof  from  these  Union  Conferences  were  present 
and  prominent  at  Edinburgh  because,  as  they  said, 
"they  could  not  afford  to  stay  away."  Edinburgh 
was  another  Pentecost.  "The  archbishops  of  Can- 
terbury and  York,  moderators  of  the  Presbyterian 
Churches  of  Scotland,  pastors  of  dissenting 
churches  of  Wesleyan  and  Baptist  faiths,  mem- 


114  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

bers  of  the  British  House  of  Lords,  Danish  nobles 
and  Swedish  Bishops,  German  professors,  Swiss 
preachers,  Australians,  New  Zealandcrs,  South 
Africans,  Americans — white,  black,  yellow,  red, 
men  of  every  clime  and  people — passed  in  quick 
succession  under  the  inexorable  seven-minute  rule, 
and  then  bowed  in  prayer  under  an  Anglican 
Bishop  or  a  Presbyterian  pastor."  Recognition 
of  the  importance  of  the  Edinburgh  Conference 
increases  as  the  date  recedes.  It  has  been  said 
that  at  Jerusalem  in  the  first  Council  of  the 
Church,  a  few  Jews  met  to  discuss  whether  they 
would  give  the  Gospel  to  the  Gentiles;  at  Edin- 
burgh thousands  of  Gentiles  met  to  discuss  whether 
they  would  give  the  Gospel  to  the  Jews. 

As  a  result  of  the  Conference  at  Edinburgh  a 
petition,  breathing  with  prayer,  was  sent  to  the 
Churches  of  Christ  throughout  the  world.  The 
message  of  that  petition  in  substance  was:  "We 
are  seeing  that  the  Church  of  Christ  to-day  faces 
a  conflict  like  that  of  the  first  and  second  centuries. 
We  must  enlist  cooperation  of  Christian  effort. 
Underneath  our  outward  differences  there  is  real 
unity  of  aim  and  purpose.  Shall  we  plant  in 
non-Christian  lands  a  multitude  of  warring  sects 


Christian  Union 


"5 


or  one  united  Church  of  Christ — a  Church  to 
penetrate  the  national  life  of  the  people  and  at 
the  same  time  to  unify  the  Christian  programme 
in  the  world."  The  influence  of  that  Edinburgh 
Conference  is  penetrating  to  the  heart  of  our 
denominations.  Dr.  Robert  E.  Speer,  in  an  article 
setting  forth  "The  World  Task  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church,"  says,  "Our  Church  is  of  the  John 
the  Baptist  persuasion.  Our  mission  is  not  the 
absorption  of  other  bodies,  but  a  partial  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  God  and  our  disappearance  in  the 
larger  body  of  Christ."  Likewise  the  American 
Baptist  Board  of  Foreign  Missions  in  September, 
19 1 2,  recommended  as  their  policy,  "that  to  the 
utmost  practical  extent  there  should  be  cooperation 
with  other  Christian  bodies  in  the  same  field." 
And  this  desire  for  the  hoops  of  a  closer  union  can 
be  reproduced  to-day  in  nearly  every  communion 
of  Christendom. 

A  story  is  still  running  its  course  concerning  two 
chaplains  on  the  battlefield  of  Fredericksburgh, 
the  one  a  Protestant  and  the  other  a  Catholic. 
After  a  day  of  weary  toil  over  the  wounded  and 
dying  the  two  Chaplains  in  sheer  exhaustion  lay 
down  together  on  the  cold  ground.    As  the  chill 


ii6  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

frost  fell  the  Catholic  called  to  the  Protestant 
to  put  their  two  blankets  together.  And  so  they 
did.  Then  the  Catholic  chaplain  shook  with 
laughter.  "I  was  thinking,"  he  said,  "how  we  have 
defeated  the  devil!  You  a  Protestant  and  I  a 
Catholic  under  the  same  blanket!"  Great  crises 
of  suffering  will  be  good  for  the  cause  of  Christ 
to-day  if  it  shows  us  that  Christian  Union  is  not 
so  sadly  off  as  Humpty-Dumpty  that  had  a  great 
fall.  Surely  the  King's  horses  and  the  King's 
men  can  put  it  together  again. 

We  should  note  also  the  move  of  union  in  City 
evangelism.  Union  evangelistic  services  have  in 
the  past  twenty-five  years  become  very  popular  in 
England  and  America.  The  conviction  grows  that 
no  single  denomination  can  successsfully  evangelize 
a  city,  to  say  nothing  of  a  nation.  Nearly  all  the 
great  revivalists  of  the  last  century  have  pro- 
claimed their  messages  in  interdenominational 
meetings.  Finley,  Moody,  the  Welsh  evangelist, 
Gypsy  Smith,  Scoville,  Billy  Sunday,  make  an  in- 
terdenominational plea.  The  great  evangelist  of 
China,  Rev.  Ding  Mei,  has  stirred  all  the  mission- 
aries to  join  with  him  in  his  great  appeals.  The 
Union  meetings  in  Hankow  mingled  representa- 


Christian  Union 


117 


tives  of  twenty-five  societies  in  services  attended 
each  night  by  ten  thousand  people.  In  Manchuria, 
Turkey,  and  Japan  also  the  great  evangelists 
gather  to  themselves  the  labours  of  all  Christian 
denominations. 

Anyone  who  steps  into  a  Union  Evangelistic 
meeting  immediately  has  the  spirit  of  Sectarian- 
ism driven  out  of  him,  as  Jesus  drove  the  evil 
spirits  out  of  those  in  Galilee.  There  in  the 
Smith,  or  Torrey,  or  Sunday  meetings  Presby- 
terian, Baptist,  Disciple,  Congregationalist — all 
unite  on  the  great  hymn, 

Onward  Christian  Soldiers,  marching  as  to  war, 
With  the  Cross  of  Jesus,  going  on  before. 
We  are  not  divided;  all  one  body  we, 
One  in  hope  and  doctrine,  one  in  charity. 

Dr.  Brown  tells  of  a  pathetic  case  (the  humor  of 
which  is  exceeded  only  by  its  tragedy)  of  a  man 
who  was  convinced  that  none  should  partake  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  who  did  not  share  his  peculiar 
ideas  of  the  sacrament.  So  this  man  was  the  sole 
administrator  and  partaker  amid  hundreds  of  de- 
vout believers,  including  his  own  wife.  "He 
humbly  hoped  that  others  might  be  saved  and  that 


ii8  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

in  Heaven  they  might  see  the  error  of  their  ways. 
There  is  something  almost  sublime  about  such 
fanaticism,  exalting  oneself  as  sole  judge  of  the 
truth,  unchurching  all  the  millions  of  fellow  Chris- 
tians and  calmly  subordinating  the  entire  work  of 
the  Church  of  God  to  the  idiosyncracies  of  his  own 
mind."  "Argument  with  such  a  man  is  futile.  His 
case  is  psychological.  A  surgical  operation  might 
be  considered  but  it  would  give  no  relief  unless  his 
entire  mental  machinery  were  removed  and  new 
works  put  in."  Such  a  case  is  not  to  laugh  at, 
it  is  to  pity,  for  it  is  sin,  the  sin  of  Pharaseeism, 
separatism. 

We  should  note  again  the  flow  of  Union 
through  the  Federated  Council  of  the  Churches  of 
Christ  of  America.  The  sectarians  shook  their 
heads  dubiously  when  ten  years  ago  the  call  was 
issued  to  delegates  to  come  to  New  York  to  effect 
a  federation  of  American  Churches.  It  was 
prophesized  that  federation  could  not  be  accom- 
plished, but  it  was  accomplished.  Much  is  yet  to 
be  realized  but  through  the  Federated  Council  a 
united  effort  is  now  made  against  the  social  evil, 
intemperance,  child  labour,  or  unpatriotism.  Strik- 
ing  instances  of  the  objective  of  the  Federation 


Christian  Union 


119 


was  the  dispatch  of  Shailer  Matthews  and  Sidney 
Gulick  to  Japan  to  express  the  love  of  seventeen 
million  American  Christians  to  the  people  of 
Japan,  and  the  present  contemplated  Crusade  for 
the  Missionary  Conquest  of  the  world  to  Christ. 

During  the  French-English  War  of  the  last 
century  two  English  frigates  at  night  mistook  each 
other  for  enemies.  They  joined  in  a  death  grapple 
and  shot  each  other  to  pieces  until  one  ship  sur- 
rendered. In  the  gray  dawn  it  was  found  that 
both  were  English  1  It  was  not  a  victory  for  Eng- 
land but  one  for  the  enemy.  Christian  Churches 
are  under  a  divine  necessity  now  to  cease  firing 
into  one  anothers'  ranks  and  direct  their  united 
fire  against  the  Sin  of  the  World.  And  it  shall 
be  found  highest  truth  that,  with  the  spirit  of 
unity  ia  the  bond  of  peace  brooding  over  the 
waters  of  our  modem  Christianity,  individualistic 
disunion  can  be  pronounced  good  only  to  the  eye 
that  is  creative  of  a  something  better. 

A  glance  at  the  war  work  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  gives  us  a  conception  of  the 
mighty  mesh  of  organized  and  united  ministry 
possible  to  the  Church.  When  the  War  broke 
out  the  Y.M.C.A.  heard  the  Macedonian  call  to 


120  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

to  go  to  the  help  of  Europe.  They  went  in  for 
service,  for  physical  comforts  and  spiritual  com- 
forts to  the  hard  pressed  fighters.  Army  officers 
who  knew  best  the  question  of  the  soldier's  effi- 
ciency insisted  that  something  was  required  beyond 
equipment  and  drill  to  keep  men  keyed  up  to  battle- 
strain.  That  something  additional  was  morale. 
Y.M.C.A.  gave  a  religion  stout  enough  to  sustain 
against  homesickness,  potent  enough  to  dissipate 
cowardice,  idealistic  enough  to  electrify  patriotism, 
conscience-stirring  enough  to  annul  temptation, 
thrilling  enough  to  make  a  man  play  the  man. 
Morale  was  accomplished  by  forging  character  in 
the  white  heat  of  religious  conviction.  It  was  a 
gnarled  problem  that  confronted  the  Army,  sure- 
ly, to  give  them  religion  without  setting  fire  to 
sectarian  controversies.  Y.M.C.A.  gave  the  boys 
a  religion  with  spinal  stiflfness  and  heart  vitality, 
God  in  Christ  the  need  of  the  world.  It  was 
shoulder-to-shoulder  brotherhood  under  the  con- 
viction that  God  meant  men  to  be  righteous.  If 
a  man  stood  by  God,  God  was  bound  in  eternal 
contract  to  stand  by  him.  "Faith  is  the  willing- 
ness to  bet  your  life  there  is  a  God." 

This  great  spirit  of  unity,  this  unison  or  union 


Christian  Union 


121 


of  the  Body  of  Christ  must  be  conserved  to  the 
avenues  of  peace.  Is  it  alone  in  bloody  conflict 
we  are  to  be  One  in  Him?  Or  does  the  Divine 
Compulsion  hold  us  also  in  the  days  of  Peace? 
It  is  Carlyle's  "hungry"  question,  begging  at  our 
doors  for  bread  of  answer.  The  days  and  nights 
are  listening  eagerly  to  hear  the  word  of  reply. 

A  period  of  national  Reconstruction  will  doubt- 
less follow  the  present  war  as  periods  of  Recon- 
struction followed  wars  in  the  past.  Someone  has 
it  that  progress  gets  its  birth  pangs  in  misery.  To 
an  extent  never  before  realized  it  is  felt  that  out 
of  the  world  war  of  to-day  shall  come  a  recon- 
struction in  social  economy,  politics,  business,  in- 
ternational relations  and — please  God! — in  the 
Church  of  Christ.  The  sons  of  God  are  waking 
to  penitential  tears.  The  old  wrangle  about  forms 
and  orthodoxy  will  give  way  to  a  simpler  and 
more  direct  religion.  The  great  attainment  of 
the  Spirit  of  Unity  is  struggling  for  voice  and 
articulation  in  Union.  In  the  world  revival  and 
reconstruction  soon  to  come,  it  is  devoutly  to  be 
prayed  that  the  Church  may  show  such  adapta- 
tion and  ability  for  federation  as  to  bridge  over 
the  world  chasm  with  a  new  arch  of  hope.    In  the 


122  Reconstruction  of  the  American  Church 

new  call  for  cooperation  and  federation  Individual 
communions  must  show  the  Baptist's  spirit  of  will- 
ingness to  decrease  in  order  that  the  Church  Uni- 
versal may  increase.  And  then  perfect  union  and 
federation  may  come  when  each  denomination  will 
fulfill  Goldsmith's  ideal  of  the  preacher,  ideal  of 
sweet  and  unselfish  contribution  to  the  total 
Truth. 

He  held  the  lamp  of  truth  that  day 
So  low  that  none  could  miss  the  way, 
And  yet  so  high  to  bring  in  sight 
That  picture  fair,  the  world's  great  light; 
That  gazing  up — the  lamp  between — 
The  hand  that  held  it  scarce  was  seen. 


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